$90,000 Art Oops

Le Rêve (The Dream)

Pablo Picasso

1932

Oil on Canvas

Steve Wynn, CEO of Wynn Resorts Limited, purchased the Picasso's Le Reve in 1997 for $48.4 million at the Christie's auction of the Ganz-collection on November 11, 1997. In 2006 he reportedly was to sell it to Steven A. Cohen for $139 million, which would at that time have been the highest price paid for any piece of art. However, he put his elbow through the canvas while showing it to his guests, including the screenwriter Nora Ephron and her husband Nick Pileggi, the broadcaster Barbara Walters, the art dealer Serge Sorokko and his wife, the model Tatiana Sorokko, the New York socialite Louise Grunwald and the lawyer David Boies and his wife, Mary. 

This canceled the sale, and after a $90,000 repair, the painting was estimated to be worth $85 million. Wynn sued his insurance company over the $54 million difference with the virtual selling price, possibly exceeding his own buying price.

Manet's LOL Quote

Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Luncheon of the Boating Party

1881

Oil on Canvas

“He has no talent at all, that boy! You, who are his friend, tell him, please, to give up painting.”

– Manet to Monet, on Renoir

I am what I am

Composition 10

by Piet Mondrian

1939-42

Oil on Canvas.

I construct lines and color combinations on a flat surface, in order to express general beauty with the utmost awareness. Nature (or, that which I see) inspires me, puts me, as with any painter, in an emotional state so that an urge comes about to make something, but I want to come as close as possible to the truth and abstract everything from that, until I reach the foundation (still just an external foundation!) of things… I believe it is possible that, through horizontal and vertical lines constructed with awareness, but not with calculation, led by high intuition, and brought to harmony and rhythm, these basic forms of beauty, supplemented if necessary by other direct lines or curves, can become a work of art, as strong as it is true. Piet Mondrian 1914

PIET MONDRIAN is an anagram of I PAINT MODERN.

I find this rather curious in relation to my own name, Venus. I was named after the Frankie Avalon song "Venus" which is about Venus de Milo, the Goddess of Love and one of the most recognized art sculptures. I never intended on becoming an artist. I was kind of drawn into it. Perhaps you could dub it a 'calling'. And my most well known painting has been my modern reproduction of Botticelli's The Birth Of Venus. In my painting Venus is being "born" into color, as an awakening. In a lot of my photographs I happen to unconsciously tilt my head just like Botticelli's Venus.

Is it destiny? Perhaps we become what we were born to be.

Aphrodite of Milos, Venus de Milo

Between 130 and 100 BC

Marble

Louvre Museum, Paris, France

The Birth of Venus

by Sandro Botticelli

c. 1486

Tempera on Canvas

The Birth of Venus

by Venus

2008

Oil on Canvas Panel

TheArtofVenus.com