Steven Cohen, owner of SAC Capital
Advisors LP, has bought Pablo Picasso’s “Le Reve” for $155 million from casino
owner Steve Wynn, a person familiar with the transaction said.
March 26 (Bloomberg) -- Steven Cohen,
owner of SAC Capital Advisors LP, has bought Pablo Picasso’s "Le
Reve" for $155 million from casino owner Steve Wynn, a person familiar
with the transaction told Bloomberg News. Betty Liu reports on Bloomberg
Television's "In The Loop." (Source: Bloomberg)
Steven A. Cohen and Mary Pat Christie
at the Robin Hood Foundation benefit on May 14, 2012.
Steven A. Cohen and Mary Pat Christie
at the Robin Hood Foundation benefit on May 14, 2012. Photographer: Amanda
Gordon/Bloomberg
The price is the highest paid by a U.S.
collector for an artwork, art dealers told Bloomberg.
Wynn had previously agreed to sell the
painting to Cohen for $139 million in 2006. The purchase was canceled after
Wynn, whose vision has deteriorated owing to retinitis pigmentosa, accidentally
put his elbow through the canvas. Cohen remained interested in the work for
years as it was repaired.
“The restoration seems to be factored
into the price,” said Beverly Schreiber Jacoby, valuation specialist and
president of New York-based BSJ Fine Art. “If you didn’t know that it has been
damaged, you would not see it. It’s superbly restored.”
The U.S. Securities and Exchange
Commission’s proposed $616 million insider-trading settlement with SAC Capital
Advisors will be the subject of a hearing on March 28 in Manhattan federal
court.
SAC manages $15 billion, 60 percent of
which is Cohen’s and his employees’ money. Cohen is one of the world’s biggest
art collectors, with works by Van Gogh, Manet, de Kooning, Picasso, Cezanne,
Warhol, Johns and Richter.
Hirst Shark
Cohen, 56, started collecting art in
about 2001. His taste has shifted from Impressionist to contemporary works.
An early Cohen purchase was Edouard
Manet’s 1878 “Self Portrait with a Palette” from the collection of Las Vegas
casino developer Wynn. Cohen later sold the work.
Cohen’s purchases have helped boost
prices of artists such as Damien Hirst, whose shark-in-formaldehyde he bought
for $8 million.
“Le Reve” shows Marie-Therese Walter,
described in biographies as the married artist’s mistress, model and muse. For
years he gave her and their daughter financial support.
The market for pictures of her surged
when the 1932 “Nude, Green Leaves and Bust” sold for $106.5 million -- a record
for any work of art at auction -- at Christie’s International in New York in
May 2010.
Sotheby’s in London also sold the 1932
“La Lecture” for 25.2 million pounds ($40.5 million) in February 2011. “Femme
assise pres d’une fenetre” sold for 28.6 million pounds at Sotheby’s in London
in February this year.
Married and 45, Picasso spotted Walter
in 1927 on a Paris street when she was 17. She would be the artist’s greatest
love for the next decade, inspiring numerous paintings and sculptures,
according to John Richardson, Picasso’s biographer.
Young Mistress
“She was young, blond, sexy, round,
accommodating,” said Michael Findlay, director of New York’s Acquavella
Galleries, which organized “Picasso’s Marie-Therese” exhibition in 2008, said
in 2011.
Most of the top Marie-Therese paintings
at auction have been dated 1932, the year of Picasso’s big retrospective at
Galeries Georges Petit in Paris.
The Marie-Therese period hasn’t always
been considered Picasso’s finest hour, said Findlay. This changed after “Le
Reve” hit the auction block as part of the collection of Victor and Sally Ganz
in 1997. It sold for $48 million.
“Everyone wanted to buy the ‘The
Dream,’” said Findlay. “It was a standout among the new generation of
collectors,” including Francois Pinault, Bernard Arnault, Cohen and Wynn.
The new “Le Reve” sale was earlier
reported by the New York Post, citing a source it didn’t identify.
The price isn’t the most paid for a
work of art. In 2011, Cezanne’s “Card Players” was bought by the royal family
of Qatar for more than $250 million, Vanity Fair reported.
(Richard Vines and Katya Kazakina write
for Muse, the arts and leisure section of Bloomberg News. Opinions expressed
are their own.)
Muse highlights include Mark Beech on
music, Martin Gayford on art, Stephanie Green’s Scene Last Night and Jeremy Gerard
on U.S. theater.