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Friday, October 30, 2009

Financial ruin dumps fine art on the market

When Lehman Bros. blew up last fall because it invested billions of dollars of clients' money in bad mortgages, the paintings that had lined the corridors and walls of its offices from Wall Street to Wilmington were dumped on the recessionary art market.

Samuel Freeman & Co., in the 1800 block of Walnut St., will be taking bids on the Lehman detritus as part of its "Modern & Contemporary" art auction, Sunday, All Saints' Day, at noon. Sale catalogue here.

Won't do much to comfort former Lehman shareholders, investors in Lehman retirement products, or ex-employees. Though it's cheerful stuff, some of it.

Some 200 of those paintings, illustrations, photos and sculptures will be up for bid in a collection of around 400 items of 19th and 20th Century art, including abstracts, urban scenes (mostly New York), an Annie Liebovitz photo of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Roy Lichtenstein's  "I Love Liberty", and much more. Andy Warhol's "Grace Kelly" is listed at $40,000 plus.
Posted by Joseph N. DiStefano @ 11:42 AM  Permalink | 4 comments
Comments   
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 2:38 PM, 10/30/2009
    Good luck selling anything in the Obama economy
    — Kaiser Sosa
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 2:50 PM, 10/30/2009
    The Obama economy? Obama, in office for all of nine months, is responsible for the biggest financial meltdown since the Great Depression? Yeah, right. You must have missed macroeconomics in college. We're suffering through the results of the eight years of Bush-Cheney drunken-sailor spending, waging war and alienating the world, making Blackwater rich and enabling Wall Street bankers to rip off middle America's retirement savings. Seriously, how dumb do you think we are?
    — Malby
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 2:53 PM, 10/30/2009
    I hope more capitalist booty is sold at auction so it can be melted down for a statue larger the Ms Liberty to replace the liberty bell in philadelphia, the subject of the honor: Lenin, glorious leader who inspired nazi obama gay socialist agenda.
    — Fernando08
  • Comment removed.


4 comments
About Joseph N. DiStefano
Joseph N. DiStefano writes this blog to feed his PhillyDeals column in the Philadelphia Inquirer. Joe has been a member of Bloomberg LP’s New York Finance Team, wrote the book “Comcasted,” taught writing at St. Joseph’s University, and studied economics and history at Penn. Reach Joe at 215-854-5194 and JoeD@phillynews.com
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