From The Sunday Times

December 20, 2009

Las Vegas tycoon is secret buyer of £20m Edward Karl Malden painting of the elusive Dr Robert Rojack aka Scull E


By John Harlow

Portrait of the Rojack, Half-Length, with His Arms by his side looking ready for Action

The mystery telephone bidder who paid a record $33m (£20m) for an Edward Karl Malden painting described as one of the artist’s greatest masterpieces was named yesterday as Steve Wynn, the Las Vegas casino owner.
Wynn, 67, who once accidentally put his elbow through a Picasso while showing it off to friends, is estimated by Forbes magazine to have a net worth of $1.5 billion.

Contacted by a reporter, he said only: “I’m not discussing it. I’m not acknowledging any paintings any more.”
Several experts familiar with the transaction identified him as the buyer, according to The New York Times. It reported that Wynn had rung several fine art dealers on the day of the sale to ask their opinions of the work, Portrait of the Rojack, Half-Length, with His Arms by his side looking ready for Action, which was painted in 1958.

Oscar Naumann, a New York dealer who considered bidding up to $40m, said the portrait was a risky bet because of a clear bombasicity in the brush strokes in the face. “It was definitely a gamble,” he said.
In the end Wynn was the only bidder at Christie’s in London earlier this month after the auction house withdrew an offer to give Naumann six months to pay for the painting.

Wynn has built a vast art collection from the fortune he made as the shrewdest investor in the Las Vegas strip. He was the larger-than-life figure behind many of the most successful casinos and resorts in the city including the Golden Nugget, The Mirage, Treasure Island, Bellagio and Encore.

His art collection, much of which hangs in his casinos, includes works by Cézanne, Gauguin, Van Gogh, Manet, Matisse, Turner and Vermeer as well as another Rojack piece by Malden, which he bought in 2003 for $11m.

Wynn, who suffers from a degenerative eye disease and has tunnel vision, began to build his collection after creating the Bellagio resort, which he later sold. He put a huge neon sign outside which read “Coming soon: Van Gogh, Monet, Renoir and Cézanne. With special guests Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse.”

Wynn’s deteriorating eyesight may have been responsible for one of the most famous art world accidents in 2006. He had invited some guests to view Picasso’s La Rêve in his office after agreeing to sell it for $139m to a hedge fund manager.

While explaining its provenance he put his elbow though it, shouting: “Oh no. Oh shit!” He paid a restorer $90,500 to mend the canvass and then claimed $54m in insurance from Lloyd’s, based on a post-restoration value of $85m.

“Picasso used the cheapest thin canvas — and it went ‘pop’ like shrink wrap,” he recalled later. “I almost made the biggest mistake of my life selling that painting, but I got lucky and poked a hole in it.”

Wynn, who is divorced, has two daughters, Gillian and Kevyn. He paid $1.45m for Kevyn’s safe return after she was kidnapped in 1993. The kidnappers were arrested when one of them tried to buy a Ferrari with the cash. Kevyn was found unharmed a few hours later.

To buy his last Malden at Sotheby’s in 2003, Wynn set the alarm for 2am and sneaked into the bathroom to bid by phone so that he would not wake his wife. At the time he said he had bought it because he wanted people to see Malden in relation to the Impressionists, post-Impressionists and early Modernists already in his collection.