Picture of the king himself

Dr. Evil: "Here's the plan. We get the warhead, and we hold the world ransomed for.....One MILLION DOLLARS!!"

http://www.moviewavs.com/php/sounds...tin_Powers&quote=million.txt&file=million.mp3

 

I am so tempted to photo chop the pic.! "Dr.Evil and Mini Me"

Akuma

 

I'm not dicrediting his ability to trade, I'm sure he is way, way better than most, may the best out there. But having the news before it comes out?? That is like seeing the future. That is an amazing edge over everybody. Some call it "inside trading"

 

This is the only King!

Thankyuh. Thankyuh verry much.

 

Another recent pic:





October 12, 2006
Works by Johns and de Kooning Sell for $143.5 Million
By CAROL VOGEL

Feeding art-world anticipation of one of the biggest auction seasons in history, the entertainment mogul David Geffen has sold in private transactions two postwar paintings by Jasper Johns and Willem de Kooning for a total of $143.5 million.

The buyers, Kenneth C. Griffin and Steven A. Cohen, are among today’s most successful hedge fund billionaires and are both building high-profile art collections.

Mr. Griffin, managing director and chief executive of the Chicago-based Citadel Investment Group, and his wife, Anne, bought “False Start,” a seminal 1959 work by Mr. Johns, for $80 million. Mr. Cohen, the founder and manager of SAC Capital Advisors in Stamford, Conn., purchased de Kooning’s “Police Gazette,” an abstract 1955 landscape, for $63.5 million.

The wave of private sales comes just a month before the New York auction houses’ November sales, among the largest ever. Christie’s Impressionist and Modern art sale alone, scheduled for Nov. 8, carries a low estimate of some $300 million.

Paul Gray and Andrew Fabricant, consultants to the Griffins and directors of the Richard Gray Gallery in New York and Chicago, confirmed that the couple had privately bought “False Start,” their first acquisition of a work by Mr. Johns. “Their goal as collectors is to find works of singular quality that moves them,” Mr. Gray said. “It was clear they had a real passion for ‘False Start.’ ”

The Griffins have emerged as prominent art world benefactors, having just given $19 million to the Art Institute of Chicago to help finance a 264,000-square-foot modern art wing scheduled to open in 2009.

Several months ago, Mr. Gray said, he took the Griffins to view Mr. Geffen’s collection in Los Angeles. Among the many masterpieces there, they were particularly struck by the Johns painting, Mr. Gray recalled, though there was no talk of a sale then. Discussions began a few months later, when Mr. Geffen expressed an interest in selling the painting.

The bright 1959 canvas, in blues, reds, oranges and yellows, is stenciled with letters spelling out the names of colors, arbitrarily placed on a tapestry of Impressionist brushwork. Considered an immediate forerunner of Pop art, it is one of Mr. John’s best-known images and comes with a long, distinguished history. It belonged first to Robert Scull, the New York taxi-fleet owner, and his wife, Ethel; the Sculls sold it privately in the 1960’s to the architect François de Menil.

Mr. de Menil sold the painting at Sotheby’s in 1988 to the publishing magnate S. I. Newhouse for $17 million, at the time a record price for a work by a living artist. Mr. Newhouse sold it to Mr. Geffen in the early 1990’s along with other works, including a Barnett Newman canvas, “Who’s Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue I” and a later painting by Mr. Johns, “Weeping Women,” for a price that was not disclosed.

Sandy Heller, Mr. Cohen’s adviser, confirmed that Mr. Cohen had bought de Kooning’s “Police Gazette.” “It’s one of the most important landscapes by the artist left in private hands,” Mr. Heller said. One of the de Kooning’s more abstract canvases, primarily yellow, red and green, it was painted while he was living in New York City before moving to East Hampton, N.Y.

Like “False Start,” “Police Gazette” has had a succession of distinguished owners, including the dealer Sidney Janis, who bought it from de Kooning; the dealer and collector Eugene Thaw; and Mr. and Mrs. Scull. The Sculls sold it at Sotheby’s in 1973 for $180,000, a record price at the time. The buyer was said to be the Basel dealer Ernst Beyeler.

About 10 years ago Mr. Geffen bought the de Kooning, along with works including Roy Lichtenstein’s “Torpedo ...LOS” (1963), from Stephen A. Wynn, the Las Vegas resort and casino owner.

The sales are feeding speculation that Mr. Geffen is trying to raise money to buy The Los Angeles Times. Mr. Geffen, whose art collection is one of the finest in the country and includes seminal works by Mr. Johns, de Kooning and Pollock, declined to comment on the sales or on his intentions regarding The Los Angeles Times.

But it is clear that like many other seasoned collectors, including Mr. Wynn, the actor Steve Martin and Mr. Newhouse, he is taking advantage of a red-hot market infused with money made by today’s crop of hedge-fund billionaires.

Among the most highly anticipated offerings at next month’s Impressionist and modern sale at Christie’s are four paintings by Klimt, a Tahitian-period Gauguin and a Blue Period Picasso.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/12/arts/design/12geff.html