Bankrupt billionaire René Benko’s private Laura foundation has at least temporarily secured liquidity. Apparently at a high price.
Because the painting ‘L’Etreinte’ (The Embrace) by Pablo Picasso, which was purchased in 2021 for 14.7 million euros, has now changed hands for almost eleven million euros, according to ‘Standaard’. The sale took place through Sotheby’s, the proceeds going to Laura AAA Kunst GmbH & Co KG, a company of the Laura Private Foundation. A reserve price of $20 million was originally agreed upon for the order to the auction house. Excluding auction house premium.
According to research by ‘Krone’, Benko and his Laura Private Foundation had purchased works by masters such as Hermann Nitsch and Andy Warhol over the years. The two most valuable objects came from Picasso and Basquiat.
The collection was worth 33.3 million
The well-known screen prints ‘Dollar Sign’ and ‘Marilyn’ by Warhol hung in the 47-year-old Tyrolean’s office in Innsbruck. But also in the villas in Innsbruck and on Lake Garda, where Benko sometimes stayed privately, the works of art were apparently mainly intended to impress visitors. An available confidential document shows that the value of the art collection at an insurance company in 2023 was approximately 33.3 million euros.
The door opener in the New York art scene in 2019 was German-American Aby Rosen, Benko’s co-investor in the purchase of the dilapidated Chrysler Building. The passionate collector Rosen would bring Benko into contact with influential people, including the director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
In March 2021, Rosen sent a link to the Christie’s auction house website. Behind it is the Basquiat work “Self-Portrait”.
Benko immediately replied:
“Thanks Aby – Basquiat looks great – call me today if you have time.”
Source: Krone
I’m Ben Stock, a journalist and author at Today Times Live. I specialize in economic news and have been working in the news industry for over five years. My experience spans from local journalism to international business reporting. In my career I’ve had the opportunity to interview some of the world’s leading economists and financial experts, giving me an insight into global trends that is unique among journalists.
