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Picasso Watch: Steve Wynn Accidentally Damages “Le Reve†And Now SUES Lloyds of London
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PICASSO, Pablo (Espagne, 1881-1973)
Months after he accidentally poked a hole in a Picasso painting, casino magnate Steve Wynn today sued Lloyd’s of London for failing to pay off a $54 million insurance claim. Wynn, who purchased the painting “Le Reve” for $48.4 million in 1997, contends that the painting was worth $139 million when, on September 30, he “accidentally placed a tear” in it while showing the work (pictured above) to friends visiting his Las Vegas office. According to Wynn’s U.S. District Court complaint, a copy of which you’ll find below, the businessman contends that, as a result of the tear, the painting’s value has plummeted to $85 million. He has demanded that Llloyd’s pay him the difference in the appreciated value of the painting and its post-damage worth. The day before he punctured the painting, Wynn had entered into an agreement with hedge fund titan Steven Cohen to sell “Le Reve” for $139 million. That deal died after the damage was disclosed to Cohen. Included as an exhibit to Wynn’s lawsuit is a “sworn statement in proof of loss” that likely made knees buckle at Lloyd’s.
Ooops looks like an accident?
Perhaps……..
But, Lloyds of London will NOT pay.
Stay tuned……….
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Picasso Watch: Steve Wynn Accidentally Damages “Le Reveâ€
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Picasso Watch: Steve Wynn Accidentally Damages “Le Reve”
PICASSO, Pablo (Espagne, 1881-1973)
Las Vegas Review-Journal: NORM: Wynn accidentally damages Picasso
Pablo Picasso’s “dream” painting has turned into a $139 million nightmare for Steve Wynn.
In an accident witnessed by a group that included Barbara Walters and screenwriters Nora Ephron and Nicholas Pileggi, Wynn accidentally poked a hole in Picasso’s 74-year-old painting, “Le Reve,” French for “The Dream.”
A day earlier, Wynn had finalized a record $139 million deal for the painting of Picasso’s mistress, Wynn told The New Yorker magazine
The accident occurred as a gesturing Wynn, who suffers from retinitis pigmentosa, an eye disease that affects peripheral vision, struck the painting with his right elbow, leaving a hole the size of a silver dollar in the left forearm of Marie-Theresa Walter, Picasso’s 21-year-old mistress.
“Oh shit, look what I’ve done,” Wynn said, according to Ephron, who gave her account in a blog published on Monday.
Wynn paid $48.4 million for the Picasso in 1997 and had agreed to sell it to art collector Steven Cohen. The $139 million would have been $4 million higher than the previous high for a work of art, according to The New Yorker.
Cosmetics magnate Ronald Lauder paid $135 million in July for Gustav Klimt’s 1907 portrait “Adele Bloch-Bauer I.”
Wynn plans to restore “Le Reve” and keep it.
Sellers remorse or a genuine accident?
Flap bets the former rather than the latter.
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Austria Sex Billboard Watch: Images Depicting Queen Elizabeth, President Bush and President Chirac YANKED
NOTE: Sexually explicit images will be displayed in this POST.
The ASSociated Press has Billboard shows world leaders in menage a trois
Austrian chancellor yanks ‘art project’ showing British queen, Bush, Chirac
Her Majesty would not have been amused.
Neither would President Bush or his French counterpart, Jacques Chirac, over a Vienna-wide art project depicting them naked and engaged in a sexual act with British Queen Elizabeth II.
The work of “euroPART,†an independent artists’ group, the scenes being displayed on electronic billboards across the Austrian capital were also embarrassing for the government just days before the country assumes the European Union’s rotating presidency Sunday.
And this is “ART”?
Even the Austrian press is outraged. Their story in German is here.
Austrian media reported that the offending images were yanked Wednesday — just a day after they started flashing at motorists — on personal orders of Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel. A woman answering the telephone at the chancellor’s public information department who refused to identify herself said she could not confirm the report.
Leading opposition party figures suggested Schuessel was at least indirectly responsible, saying the group had received about $1.2 million in government subsidies.
Schuessel spokeswoman Heidi Glueck was quoted by the Austria Press Agency as saying the chancellor had been “unaware†of the subject matter being displayed.
Are the Austrian’s embarassed because the art was “POOR and UNORIGINAL” or because the government paid for it?
Certainly, it is in BAD TASTE – signifying NOTHING more than that.
