Media Coverage
Source: Artnet News
Media Coverage
Press Contacts: Erik Cummins, Matt Hyams, Olivia Thomas
05.21.21
Billionaire Steve Wynn was a big player at auctions in New York last week, buying more than $100 million worth of blue-chip art and offloading a couple of lower priced works as well.
“Wynn Fine Art, a dealership he founded, was the anonymous buyer of Versus Medici (1982) by Jean-Michel Basquiat, which fetched $50.3 million at Sotheby’s,” according to Wynn’s lawyer Michael Kosnitzky, a Private Wealth partner at Pillsbury.
This piece was the fourth priciest lot of the $1.5 billion auction. Versus Medici had been estimated at $35 million to $50 million.
According to Kosnitzky, Wynn’s company also went on a buying spree at Christie’s, scooping up Vincent van Gogh’s Le Pont de Trinquetaille (1888) for $37.4 million and Andy Warhol’s Two Marilyns (Double Marilyn) (1962) for $15.8 million. “It’s for resale,” he said of the haul.
As a seller, Wynn parted with lower-priced works by Warhol and Richard Diebenkorn, according to Kosnitzky.
Wynn is one of the world’s top art collectors. Headquartered in Las Vegas, Wynn Fine Art also operates exhibition spaces in Beverly Hills and Palm Beach. The latter currently has an exhibition of Warhol and Basquiat on view through the end of June.