The $106.5 Million Anonymous Bid

Why spend a record-setting fortune on a painting and then keep your name out of the press? In this Sunday’s Week in Review, Roberta Smith explores the mystique of the mystery bidder:

The superrich have always sent very public mixed signals about their need for privacy. In this case the headline-making price and the anonymous buyer made that paradox and its manipulative aspects especially clear. But how private does someone who buys a painting at public auction for a world-record price want to be?

www.pointofart.eu
Estate of Pablo Picasso/Artists Rights Society, New York, via Christie’sPicasso’s 1932 painting “Nu au Plateau de Sculpteur (Nude, Green Leaves and Bust).”