Kelly Crow was hovering at the David Zwirner’s Art Basel booth admiring a Neo Rauch painting “Etappe”:

After eyeing the 9-foot-wide work for several minutes, Pitt rubbed his goatee, fiddled with his tweed driving cap, and walked away. Zwirner, looking slightly anxious, said, “He’s on the fence. Nothing wrong with that, I guess.” Pitt returned minutes later with Eli and Edythe Broad, the major Los Angeles collectors. Pitt and Broad conferred and then the group left. Broad, hours later, says he gave the actor a friendly nudge. “I told him we had four Rauchs and if he didn’t buy it, we probably would.” The peer pressure worked: Pitt soon after agreed to buy the oil on linen Rauch for just under $1 million, the gallery confirmed.

Brad Pitt Buys Big at Basel, with a Little Push from Eli Broad (Speakeasy/WSJ)