Art Market Monitor

Global Coverage ~ Unique Analysis

  • AMMpro
  • AMM Fantasy Collecting Game
  • Podcast
  • Contact Us

Preservationists Suspect Seagram’s Building Owner of pro-Contemporary, Anti-Picasso Bias

February 4, 2014 by Marion Maneker

Pablo-Picasso-Le-Tricorne

The New York Times reports on a contretemps taking place at the Four Seasons restaurant where Aby Rosen wants to remove this 1919 Picasso stage set originally made for Diaghilev to make way for Contemporary art works:

But the real peril is the coming rescue effort, says Peg Breen, president of the conservancy.

“One of RFR’s own movers told us that no matter how cautious they are, the work is so brittle and fragile that it could, as one of them put it, ‘crack like a potato chip,’ ” she said.

On the surface, the dispute is about grout and tiles, but it is also a collision of values and taste. Ms. Breen said she suspected that one of the founders of RFR was just not a fan of “Le Tricorne” — a person who heard him discussing the work said he dismissed it as “a schmatte,” Yiddish for rag — and was using the damaged-wall argument as a pretense to ditch it for good.

The executive in question is no one’s idea of a philistine. He is Aby Rosen, among the city’s most prominent collectors and chairman of the New York State Council on the Arts. His own tastes run to contemporary artists, like Damien Hirst and Jeff Koons, and he has told people that he wants to showcase highlights of his vast trove in the space now occupied by “Le Tricorne.”

At Four Seasons, Picasso Tapestry Hangs on the Edge of Eviction (NYTimes)

More from Art Market Monitor

  • de Pury-fiedde Pury-fied
  • Christie’s Sells Mysterious Rubens, Once Barred From Foreign Purchase in U.K., for $5 M.Christie’s Sells Mysterious Rubens, Once Barred From Foreign Purchase in U.K., for $5 M.
  • Get Ready for a New Vision of Francis BaconGet Ready for a New Vision of Francis Bacon
  • The Frida Kahlo Exhibition That Isn’t by Frida KahloThe Frida Kahlo Exhibition That Isn’t by Frida Kahlo
  • Gorvy Pitches Christie’s Contemporary SaleGorvy Pitches Christie’s Contemporary Sale
  • Joaquin Torres-Garcia at Acquavella GalleriesJoaquin Torres-Garcia at Acquavella Galleries

Filed Under: Collectors Tagged With: Aby Rosen

About Marion Maneker

Want to get Art Market Monitor‘s posts sent to you in our email? Sign up below by clicking on the Subscribe button.

Top Posts

  • Keith Haring’s 1989 Retrospect Comes to Sotheby’s London Prints Sale
  • Lost Lempicka Discovered at Sotheby's
  • $10 M. Picasso Portrait Unseen for Decades to Sell at Bonhams
  • Vienna Secession Painting, Long Thought to Be Lost, Sets a Record at Auction
  • Four of Picasso's Women Valued at $28m Come to Christie's from Rose-Walters Collection
  • Tony Podesta's Secret Art Buying
  • Roy Lichtenstein’s Top Ten Auction Prices
  • Collection of Texas Heiress Anne Marion Expected to Fetch $150 M. at Sotheby’s
  • Norman Rockwell's Not Gay. But Is He a Great Artist?
  • Sotheby's Pulls in a $9m David Hockney for November
  • About Us/ Contact
  • Podcast
  • AMMpro
  • Newsletter
  • FAQ

twitterfacebooksoundcloud
Privacy Policy
Terms & Conditions
California Privacy Rights
Do Not Sell My Personal Information
Advertise on Art Market Monitor