Carol Vogel suggests that Sotheby’s is staging a show of works from Steven Cohen’s art collection to gain publicity:

Sotheby’s will show a group of 20 works that the couple have collected over the past decade. The exhibition, from April 2 to 14 in the 10th-floor galleries at the firm’s York Avenue headquarters in Manhattan, is a carefully selected group of paintings, sculptures, works on paper and photographs that all depict women.

But Tobias Meyer has a different explanation for the event:

“It just came to me,” Mr. Meyer said. “I suddenly said, ‘Why don’t we do an exhibition of all the works in your collection that show women?’ ”

The answer was an instant yes. “I hadn’t really thought about it, and nobody had ever offered,” Mr. Cohen said in a telephone interview. “So I was game. It’s unlikely a museum would do something like this, and I figured: Why not let the public see the pictures? It’s a free exhibition.”

He was quick to add that nothing was for sale. “This is not a way of selling my pictures,” Mr. Cohen emphasized.

For Sotheby’s it makes business sense. “It helps grow our relationship,” Mr. Meyer said. “And it’s good for building the brand.”

Meanwhile, Josh Baer asks why the Times couldn’t be bothered to mention that Cohen’s firm, SAC Capital, has taken nearly a 6% stake in the publicly traded auction house since September of 2008.

Inside Art: Revealing Women Once Kept Private (New York Times)