Ronald Searle Oil mogul Armand Hammer amassed a large collection of paintings by famous artists. He then decided to build a $70 million museum to house his collection: The Armand Hammer Museum, a grand monument to Hammer and his taste. ...
Ronald Searle Oil mogul Armand Hammer amassed a large collection of paintings by famous artists. He then decided to build a $70 million museum to house his collection: The Armand Hammer Museum, a grand monument to Hammer and his taste. Some were startled to learn that despite his personal fortune of hundreds of millions of dollars, Hammer expected the shareholders of the Occidental Petroleum Company to pay for his new museum. But only when shareholders sued to block Hammer from using company funds was it revealed that he had already spent millions of dollars of shareholder money to buy art for his personal collection. Those millions of dollars were taken from the retirement funds of teachers and waiters and shop clerks, in order for Hammer to buy more art.C. F. PayneSullivantDennis Kozlowski, the former CEO of Tyco International, acquired a personal fortune of approximately $600 million. Before he was convicted for plundering money from his company, he set out to acquire a major art collection (Monet, Renoir) with the assistance of a Palm beach art consultant. Kozlowski apparently became a fan of Michelangelo in the process because he commissioned an ice sculpture of Michelangelo's David that urinated Stolichnaya vodka into the crystal glasses of guests who he flew to his wife's $2 million birthday party on the island of Sardinia. During one of Kozlowski's last major art purchases he falsified the paperwork to avoid paying tax on $14 million worth of art, and ended up being indicted for tax evasion.Ronald SearleRobert Fawcett Richard Fuld, former CEO of the investment firm Lehman Brothers, led his company into the treacherous subprime loan market. There they made billions by scooping up toxic debt and passing it off on clueless investors who trusted Lehman. This played a major role in triggering the recent global financial meltdown and wrecking countless lives. Fuld himself made half a billion dollars before Lehman Brothers finally went bankrupt. Why did Fuld need the money so badly? What made it all worthwhile? For one thing, Fuld was able to acquire an art collection worth tens of millions of dollars, including major works by abstract expressionists. Bonus: his wife got to serve on the board of the Museum of Modern Art.A recent report on the intrinsic benefits of the arts emphasized that the arts spur growth in individual capacities—such as enhanced empathy for other people and cultures, powers of observation, and understanding of the world—that can occur through cumulative arts experiences. These intrinsic effects enrich individual lives, but they also have a public spillover component in that they cultivate the kinds of citizens desired in a pluralistic society. Garth Williams
