The Financial Times does a little puff piece on the relationship between Craig Robins, the Miami collector and developer, and Jack Tilton, the dealer who acts as Robins’s art advisor.
Jack Tilton, Craig Robins
“Jack comes out of the 1960s; he’s utopian, open-minded. He is interested in getting you involved rather than making transactions.” Tilton is a quiet, professorial-looking man, the visual opposite of Robins, who is a wiry, barely controlled ball of energy. “We met, and Craig said, “Let’s try it,” Tilton says. “We strategised a bit, and talked about what he already had. He had John Baldessari, and I said, “Craig, we should collect him in depth. You might as well become his number-one collector.’ I believe in depth.” Robins now owns about 35 Baldessaris.
Craig Robins lawsuit against David Zwirner’s gallery goes down in flames for Robins–and the art world, according to Randy Kennedy:
Mr. Robins sued, asking for a temporary restraining order to prevent the Zwirner gallery from selling three paintings in a show of new work, paintings that Mr. Robins contends he should have the right to buy. But Judge William H. Pauley denied the request for the restraining order, in part because Mr. Robins provided no written evidence that the gallery ever agreed to keep the 2004 sale confidential or promised to get him off the blacklist and sell him new works.
In the ruling Judge Pauley wrote that the case “offers an unflattering portrait of the art world – a world of self-proclaimed royalty full of ‘blacklists,’ ‘greylists’ and astonishing chicanery.” In denying Mr. Robins’s request to prevent the sale of the paintings, the judge added that “collectors in this seemingly refined bazaar should heed the admonition ‘caveat emptor.’ ”
Alexandra Peers details the lawsuit between Craig Robins and David Zwirner in the New York Observer:
Craig Robins, the well-known Miami real estate developer, is charging in his lawsuit that he sold a painting by noted South African artist Marlene Dumas in 2004, with Mr. Zwirner brokering the deal. Mr. Zwirner paid him in both cash and other artworks, in what’s called a like-kind transaction in the Internal Revenue Code. Mr. Zwirner agreed to keep the sale confidential, according to the suit, because the sale would be something of an affront to the artist and might prevent Mr. Robbins from gaining access to her other works.Continue Reading
