Guy Wildenstein | |
---|---|
Born | New York City, US | December 19, 1945
Occupation(s) | Businessman, art dealer, racehorse owner/breeder |
Spouse | Kristina Hansson |
Children | 4 |
Father | Daniel Wildenstein |
Relatives | Alec Wildenstein (brother) Georges Wildenstein (grandfather) |
Guy Wildenstein (born December 19, 1945) is a French-American businessman, art dealer, and racehorse owner and breeder.
Born in New York City, Guy Wildenstein is the son of Martine Julie Kapferer and Daniel Wildenstein, an art dealer, racehorse owner and breeder in France. His family fled France following the German occupation during World War II to the United States, where Guy was born. He is a member of the Assembly of French Citizens Abroad. [1]
After his father's death in 2001, Guy Wildenstein assumed managing control of his art business, leaving his brother Alec to concentrate mainly on the horse racing and breeding operations. Alec died in 2008, leaving Guy in charge of both businesses. The size of his share of the family fortune and trusts, estimated from $5 billion to $10 billion, was disputed by his stepmother, Silvia Wildenstein, in 2009. [2] [3]
Among Wildenstein's art businesses is the Wildenstein & Company art gallery in New York City, formerly at 19 East 64th Street. [4]
The BBC programme Fake or Fortune? criticized Guy Wildenstein in June 2011, after the Wildenstein Institute controversially refused to allow the painting Bords de la Seine à Argenteuil into the Monet catalogue raisonné , despite the programme submitting conclusive documentary evidence to prove its authenticity. The programme's presenter, Philip Mould, called for the Wildenstein Institute to be replaced by a committee of scholars for the purpose of adjudicating whether a painting is an original Monet or not. [5]
In July 2011, Guy Wildenstein was charged by the French authorities with concealing art that had been reported as missing or stolen. The police seized 30 artworks from the vault of the Wildenstein Institute, at least 20 of which, including sculptures by the Italian artist Rembrandt Bugatti, two sketches by Edgar Degas and a pastel by Eugène Delacroix, were claimed to have been originally part of the collection of Joseph Reinach. Daniel Wildenstein had acted as executor of the estate of Reinach's daughter in 1972 and had been charged with responsibility for distributing the collection, which was held at the Wildenstein Institute, among the heirs. [6] Wildenstein was heard by a magistrate in October 2016 and denied all charges. [7] At trial in 2017, Wildenstein was cleared of hiding paintings, the trial judge said that there was a “clear attempt” by Wildenstein and others to hide assets but it was impossible to return a guilty verdict due to shortcomings in the investigation. [8] The prosecutors successfully appealed to the Cour de Cassation, and the case will be rejudged. [9]
In January of 2021 it was announced that Guy Wildenstein and family members will stand again trial for tax fraud charges. They have already been cleared twice previously. This will be France's third attempt to try the case. They are accused of concealing nearly £500 million from French authorities. [10] [11]
Guy Wildenstein is married to Kristina Hasson, a Swedish former model. They have four children, son David and daughters Vanessa, Olivia, and Samantha. [12] David manages the family's real estate assets and Vanessa manages the family's London gallery. [13]
In 2008, he invested $49.2 million to flip five Plaza Hotel apartments and bought 7 Sutton Place for $32.5 million. [14]
Berthe Marie Pauline Morisot was a French painter and a member of the circle of painters in Paris who became known as the Impressionists.
Oscar-Claude Monet was a French painter and founder of impressionism painting who is seen as a key precursor to modernism, especially in his attempts to paint nature as he perceived it. During his long career, he was the most consistent and prolific practitioner of impressionism's philosophy of expressing one's perceptions of nature, especially as applied to plein air (outdoor) landscape painting. The term "impressionism" is derived from the title of his painting Impression, soleil levant, which was first exhibited in the so-called "exhibition of rejects" of 1874–an exhibition initiated by Monet and like-minded artists as an alternative to the Salon.
Daniel Leopold Wildenstein was a French art dealer, historian and owner-breeder of thoroughbred and standardbred race horses. He was the third member of the family to preside over Wildenstein & Co., one of the most successful and influential art-dealerships of the 20th century. He was once described as "probably the richest and most powerful art dealer on earth."
A catalogue raisonné is a comprehensive, annotated listing of all the known artworks by an artist either in a particular medium or all media. The works are described in such a way that they may be reliably identified by third parties, and such listings play an important role in authentication.
Haystacks is the common English title for a series of impressionist paintings by Claude Monet. The principal subject of each painting in the series is stacks of harvested wheat. The title refers primarily to a twenty-five canvas series which Monet began near the end of the summer of 1890 and continued through the following spring, though Monet also produced five earlier paintings using this same stack subject. A precursor to the series is the 1884 Haystack Near Giverny.
Water Lilies is a series of approximately 250 oil paintings by French Impressionist Claude Monet (1840–1926). The paintings depict his flower garden at his home in Giverny, and were the main focus of his artistic production during the last thirty years of his life. Many of the works were painted while Monet suffered from cataracts.
A Wildenstein Index Number refers to an item in a numerical system published in catalogues by Daniel Wildenstein, a scholar of Impressionism, who published catalogues raisonnés of artists such as Claude Monet, Édouard Manet and Paul Gauguin through his family business, Wildenstein & Company. In these catalogues, each painting by an artist was assigned a unique number. These index numbers are now used throughout the art world, in art texts, and on art websites to uniquely identify specific works of art by specific artists.
Alice Raingo Hoschedé Monet was the wife of department store magnate and art collector Ernest Hoschedé and later of the Impressionist painter Claude Monet.
La Grenouillère is an 1869 painting by the French impressionist painter, Claude Monet.. It depicts "Flowerpot Island", also known as the Camembert, and the gangplank to La Grenouillère, a floating restaurant and boat-hire on the Seine at Croissy-sur-Seine. He was accompanied by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, who also painted the scene at the same time.
Alec Nathan Wildenstein was a French-born American billionaire businessman, art dealer, racehorse owner, and breeder.
Georges Lazare Wildenstein was a French gallery owner, art dealer, art collector, editor and art historian.
The Gazette des Beaux-Arts was a French art review, founded in 1859 by Édouard Houssaye, with Charles Blanc as its first chief editor. Assia Visson Rubinstein was chief editorial secretary under the direction of George Wildenstein from 1936 until 1960. Her papers, which include all editions of the Gazette from this period, are intact at the Cantonal and University Library of Lausanne in Dorigny. The Gazette was a world reference work on art history for nearly 100 years - one other editor in chief, from 1955 to 1987, was Jean Adhémar. It was bought in 1928 by the Wildenstein family, whose last representative was Daniel Wildenstein, its director from 1963 until his death in 2001. The magazine was published monthly and was headquartered in Paris. The review closed in 2002.
Bords de la Seine à Argenteuil is an oil painting by an unknown artist. The painting is a landscape depicting the River Seine at Argenteuil in France. It is owned by Englishman David Joel.
Jocelyn Alice Wildenstein is a Swiss socialite known for her extensive cosmetic surgery, resulting in her catlike appearance; her 1999 high-profile divorce from billionaire art dealer and businessman Alec Wildenstein; and her extravagant lifestyle and subsequent bankruptcy filing.
M. Knoedler & Co. was an art dealership in New York City founded in 1846. When it closed in 2011, amid lawsuits for fraud, it was one of the oldest commercial art galleries in the US, having been in operation for 165 years.
Springtime or The Reader is an 1872 painting by the French Impressionist painter Claude Monet. It depicts his first wife, Camille Doncieux, seated reading beneath a canopy of lilacs. The painting is presently held by the Walters Art Museum.
The Wildenstein Institute was a French art institute that published catalogues raisonnés and scholarly inventories.
Portrait of Père Paul, also known as Monsieur Paul or The Chef, is a painting by Claude Monet.
Wildenstein & Company, a private art dealership, was founded in Paris by Nathan Wildenstein in the mid-19th century and run by his family ever since. The Wildenstein Institute, established by Nathan's son Georges, maintains one of the largest art history reference libraries in the world.