Billionaire Ron Perelman Claims $410 Million In Damage To Art Collection After Hamptons House Fire | Canada News Media
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Billionaire Ron Perelman Claims $410 Million In Damage To Art Collection After Hamptons House Fire

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Billionaire financier Ronald Perelman is suing a group of insurance companies for more than $410 million over five multimillion dollar paintings Perelman claims were damaged in a 2018 fire at his East Hamptons estate, though the insurers say the artwork wasn’t hurt, according to Artnet.

Key Facts

Court documents reported on by Artnet Wednesday revealed a 2020 lawsuit brought by Perelman against his insurers, in which three LLCs tied to Perelman — together known as AGP Holdings — claimed they were owed $410 million for five insured pieces of art they said were hurt in the fire: two Andy Warhol pieces, two by Ed Ruscha and a Cy Twombly work, according to Artnet.

The defendants include “certain underwriters” at Lloyds of London, Great Lakes Insurance SE of Germany, Swiss Re International of Luxembourg, AIG Property Casualty of New York, and Federal Insurance Company of New Jersey, according to Artnet.

Perelman said in court documents seen by Artnet that after the fire the five pieces “lost their luster, lost their depth, lost some of their definition, and lost a lot of their character.”

The insurers–which have already shelled out about $141 million for fire damage under the policies–deny the allegations, claiming the damage predates the 2018 blaze and that Perelman’s lawsuit launched before their investigation was completed.

Big Number

$125 million. That’s what Perelman’s side claims is the estimated worth of the most valuable of the five works, Cy Twombly’s “Untitled (1971).” The alleged $125 million value is significantly more than the most expensive Twombly piece to ever sell at auction, “Untitled (New York City)” which went for $70.5 million in 2015. AGP claims the two Warhol paintings, “Elvis 21 Times” and “Campbell’s Soup Can” are worth $75 million and $100 million, respectively. Ed Ruscha’s “Standard Station” is valued at $60 million, while the artist’s “Vicksburg” is claimed to be worth $50 million. Perelman purchased all five works through art megadealer Larry Gagosian, according to Artnet.

Contra

The insurers said in court documents the lawsuit coincided with a period in time in which Perelman was reportedly “desperately seeking cash to satisfy debts that had come due.” The five paintings the lawsuit deals with also happen to be insured for the highest values under Perelman’s insurance policies, they said.

Crucial Quote

“It just didn’t have its spark. It didn’t have its distinctive definition in the lines, in the swirls. It just lost—it just lost its oomph,” Perelman said of the Twombly’s alleged damage, according to Artnet. He compared the issues with the artwork to music, saying that “if the piano is out of key, and you’ve heard the piece performed on a piano that’s in tune, you know the difference.”

Our Valuation

Perelman is worth $1.9 billion, according to Forbes’ estimate. He was once worth more than $14 billion.

Key Background

Starting in the 1970’s, Perelman built an empire investing in a wide range of industries, including chocolate, cosmetics, entertainment, retail and pharmaceuticals through his holding company MacAndrews & Forbes. But the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 took a toll on many of his companies, he said. His biggest blow came when Revlon, which he took control of in a 1985 hostile takeover, filed for bankruptcy in June after facing increased competition over the past few years. Perelman has reportedly been unloading billions worth of assets. He’s parted with millions of dollars in art and real estate along with his Gulfstream 650.

 

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40 Random Bits of Trivia About Artists and the Artsy Art That They Articulate – Cracked.com

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40 Random Bits of Trivia About Artists and the Artsy Art That They Articulate  Cracked.com



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John Little, whose paintings showed the raw side of Montreal, dies at 96 – CBC.ca

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John Little, whose paintings showed the raw side of Montreal, dies at 96  CBC.ca



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A misspelled memorial to the Brontë sisters gets its dots back at last

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LONDON (AP) — With a few daubs of a paintbrush, the Brontë sisters have got their dots back.

More than eight decades after it was installed, a memorial to the three 19th-century sibling novelists in London’s Westminster Abbey was amended Thursday to restore the diaereses – the two dots over the e in their surname.

The dots — which indicate that the name is pronounced “brontay” rather than “bront” — were omitted when the stone tablet commemorating Charlotte, Emily and Anne was erected in the abbey’s Poets’ Corner in October 1939, just after the outbreak of World War II.

They were restored after Brontë historian Sharon Wright, editor of the Brontë Society Gazette, raised the issue with Dean of Westminster David Hoyle. The abbey asked its stonemason to tap in the dots and its conservator to paint them.

“There’s no paper record for anyone complaining about this or mentioning this, so I just wanted to put it right, really,” Wright said. “These three Yorkshire women deserve their place here, but they also deserve to have their name spelled correctly.”

It’s believed the writers’ Irish father Patrick changed the spelling of his surname from Brunty or Prunty when he went to university in England.

Raised on the wild Yorkshire moors, all three sisters died before they were 40, leaving enduring novels including Charlotte’s “Jane Eyre,” Emily’s “Wuthering Heights” and Anne’s “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.”

Rebecca Yorke, director of the Brontë Society, welcomed the restoration.

“As the Brontës and their work are loved and respected all over the world, it’s entirely appropriate that their name is spelled correctly on their memorial,” she said.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

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