I’ve worked for a few celebrity clients over the years as an appraiser. Although I can’t discuss my OWN celebrity client’s collections, Town and Country, Vanity Fair, and Art Net News reported on celebrity tastes this past month.
Netflix’s documentary series Harry and Meghan shows the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s Archewell Foundation Offices in Montecito decorated with a copy of the 1836 “Portrait of Louise Mayer” by Ferdinand Georg Waldemuller. We see a beautiful young woman in a fabulous gown blowing a HUGE pink bubblegum bubble. No doubt that feature was added to the portrait recently!
The first couple of American pop music, Beyonce and Jay-Z, are art lovers. They own works by Tracy Emin, Donald Judd, and Ed Ruscha, all modern contemporary masters. Jay-Z worked with images by Jeff Koons and Damien Hirst on stage. In 2018 the couple shot a music video in the LOUVRE singing and dancing alongside the Venus de Milo, the Winged Victory of Samothrace, the Mona Lisa in the Denon Wing, David’s Oath of the Horati and his Madame Recamier, and Gericault’s Raft of the Medusa.
Leonardo and Leonardo
Reports claim that Leonardo DiCaprio is a regular at many International Art Fairs, and he generously donates works of art he’s owned to LACMA. He studies art history, remaining true to his namesake. He brings Leonardo to life in a biopic based on Walter Isaacson’s book. Sources say DiCaprio collects surrealism and hyperrealism.
Barbra Streisand, a notable collector of American art and furniture, is rumored to at one time owned a wonderful Arts and Crafts collection, as well as American folk art and design. She began to collect American traditional painters after taking a tour given by Bill Clinton in 1992 of the art in the White House. A LACMA trustee from 2007-2014, Streisand generously donated a eight foot tall John Singer Sargent oil on canvas (1900) to the museum.
Sean Combs (a.k.a. P-Diddy) set a world record for Kerry James Marshall in 2018. P-Diddy made the winning bid at Sotheby’s for the artist’s “Past Times” (1997), at $21.1 million, the highest price paid to that point for a living African American artist.
P-Diddy’s friend Swiss Beatz (Kasseem Dean) and his wife Alicia Keys are super collectors in the contemporary art world. Dean bought seventy major works last year. He likes overscale contemporary sculpture, especially the work of KAWS. An Instagram post shows the impresario and the artist on the feet of one such wooden carved KAWS work at nineteen feet tall. The Super Art Couple founded The Dean Collection to highlight the work of contemporary African American artists. They own the largest collection of Gordon Parks photos in private hands, lately shown at the Fogg at Harvard. They own Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Andy Warhol. Dean sits on the Board of the Brooklyn Museum and NEVER accepted money for any work he deaccessioned, he accepts trades only. He is SERIOUS about artist’s rights.
More Celebrity Collectors
Bet you didn’t know Sir Elton John has a museum quality collection of MAJOR photography. Cindy Sherman, Nan Goldin, Robert Mapplethorpe, Minor White, Irving Penn, and Man Ray hang on his walls. The Tate Modern envied the Elton John collection and borrowed for their show “The Radical Eye: Modernist Photography from the Sir Elton John Collection.”
Cheech Marin is building a museum with California State funding of almost $10M for the Riverside community. A new building of a unique design will house Marin’s collection of Chicano paintings, the largest in private hands.
Madonna? She collects nude portraiture, Frida Kahlo (The Tate borrowed this artist from her), and Tamara de Lempicka. She loves Art Deco design in painting and in furniture.
Steve Martin is a devoted collector. He sold a friend a Willem de Kooning painting in 1991 that sold recently for $68.9 million. You might say he has “an eye.” He also studies art history and wrote a great play, Picasso at the Lapin Agile (Picasso and Einstein meet at a French bar….). Martin, a fan of 1920-40s Canadian painters, donated millions to the Huntington to benefit the American Collection of Art. He is also a former trustee of LACMA.
Finally, tennis star John McEnroe commissioned Andy Warhol to create a portrait of him and Tatum O’Neal, his wife at the time, in 1986. Notoriously, he used to refer to all artists as divas. McEnroe has now turned back to the art world and currently owns a Manhattan based ART GALLERY. Work he’s held has sold for over $12 million per canvas at the top end.
If you’ve got it, FLAUNT IT!