Former Wall Street mogul, noted art collector and alleged inside trader Steven Cohen is the proud owner of the most expensive sculpture ever sold, as he has been identified as the mystery buyer who paid $141 million at an auction recently for Giacometti’s Bronze ‘Pointing Man’.
Cohen, whose hedge fund SAC pleaded guilty to insider-trading charges and paid $1.8 billion in fines, agreed to stop managing money for outside clients back in 2013. Cohen is also facing a civil suit by the SEC, which alleges he failed to supervise employees who were found guilty of insider trading, reports valuewalk.com.
The New York Post first identified Cohen as the mystery buyer of the Giacometti bronze sculpture.
Cohen is the founder of Point 72 Asset Management (formerly SAC Capital), and has over recent years become one of the world’s top collectors of modern and contemporary artists. He already owns Giacometti’s “Chariot” sculpture which he bought at an auction at Sotheby’s last year for $101 million, as well as Pablo Picasso’s “The Dream,” which he purchased from casino billionaire Steve Wynn a couple of years ago.
Art experts point out that banned-from-the-industry Cohen also owns several well-known pieces by Andy Warhol and Jackson Pollock. Other collectors have surmised that Cohen might have been the buyer of a couple of other Giacometti pieces that have sold over the last few years.
The iconic six-foot-tall ‘Pointing Man” sculpture depicts a reedy man with his right arm outstretched, and is considered a classic example of Giacometti’s style of portraying the existential Everyman.
