Appraiser Workshops: Who Bought the Munch?

5/04/2012

Who Bought the Munch?

Alexandra Peers has a good post on the Daily Beast with speculation on who was the winning bidder of The Scream. Unfortunately, that is all it is, speculation as we dont even know if it were a country such as Qatar, an institution or an individual collector. I would think over time the answers will be known, but for now it is fun trying to figure out who the new owner is.

The Daily Beast reports

Further West, the Getty Museum is normally a big spender but recently fired staff as a cost-cutting measure. The Metropolitan Museum of Art? Not known for its spending sprees, it issued a “no comment.” Of course, a Scandanavian institution could have bought it ... but they have three. The Seattle Art museum is cash-strapped, but it could head to the Emerald City if Paul Allen was on that phone.

As for individuals rich enough to buy, Bill Gates, by and large, buys American art; Casino mogul Steve Wynn recently came off of a $741-million divorce; cosmetics king Ron Lauder, who bought Klimt’s “Adele Bloch-Bauer” for in excess of $100 million, isn’t spending as freely these days and has passed on Munchs offered in the past. Art dealers who’ve done deals with all three of these men put put them out of the running.

Qatar, the United Arab Emirate which is on a massive art-collecting, museum-building spree, last year purchased Paul Cezanne’s “The Card Players” for $250 million. But, said one dealer who has done multiple deals with emirates collectors “The people who buy for the people who buy for the emir don’t appear to be interested.” Moreover, while Sotheby’s loaned the Munch to some private homes in Asia and London for a look-see, it did not tour it to the Middle East,

As for the likelihood of a Chinese buyer, Larry Warsh, perhaps the top U.S. collector of Chinese Contemporary Art, said “The money is there, whether this type of conspicuous consumption is something that they want to exhibit at this present time ..is highly doubtful." Munch is not a well-known artist in China, he noted.

Russian billionaires? Roman Abramovitch's girlfriend Dasha Zhukova announced pricey plans last week for Rem Koolhaas to create a new Gorky Park, Moscow home for her Garage museum – but doesn’t plan a permanent collection. Russian-American Len Blavatnik is a better guess: he’s rumored to have viewed the painting privately in London.

There's Steve Cohen. The Greenwich, Conn. hedge-fund manger has a huge and spectacular collection of trophy art, owns a Munch, and takes home $1 billion in compensation a year, according to the Wall Street Journal.