You could be forgiven for wondering why the world–or, more important, Los Angeles–needs another profile of Eli Broad, the art collector. Yet Jori Finkel’s LA Times piece chronicling her visit to Broad’s home to discuss his art collection yields these interesting observations on art from the one-time CPA who admits to not having an affinity for understanding art.
It also turns out that Broad has a hard time turning off the little accountant in the back of his brain:
“If I had to do it over again, I would buy some of the great work that I saw people like David Geffen buy several years ago for what I thought was an awful lot of money — like the Johns ‘Target’ he had. I was too disciplined then. I didn’t have the money.”
There was a painting that Eli Broad couldn’t afford? “Well, I had the money, but I wasn’t prepared to spend $10 million for a great painting.”
Finkel asked how much the collection cost to assemble:
“I don’t know the exact number, whether it’s $200 or $400 million,” Broad says, “but it’s probably closer to the latter. If you ask me what it’s worth, I’ve heard numbers that approach $2 billion, which blows my mind because I’m seeing all that happens then is that our insurance costs go up.”
Eli Broad, At Home with Art (Los Angeles Times)
