Save this article to read it later.
Find this story in your accountsSaved for Latersection.
Collectors bid on pieces at auction just to keep the value of their own inventory high.
.The Mugrabis: The Other Warhol Factory
.
Mugrabi took toAndy Warholin particular, whom he saw as a symbol of American empire.
The family is now worth an estimated $5 billion.
Reign:30 years; two generations
Market cornered:Warhol.
The family owns an estimated 800 works by the artist.
Monet and Picasso are like Microsoft and Coca-Cola, David once said.
Reign:70 years; two generations
Market cornered:Picasso.
(Confusingly, Ezra also has two dealer sons named Helly and Joe Nahmad in London.)
(Then-US attorney Preet Bharara said it also had connections to Russian-American organized crime.
)Helly was sentenced to 366 days in prison and ordered to pay a $30,000 fine.
Donald Trump later pardoned him.
(The remaining branches are now in New York, London, Madrid, and Barcelona.)
Reign:75 years; three generations
Market cornered:Abstract expressionism.
Today, Max runs The Ranch, an indoor-outdoor gallery space in Montauk.
Frank Lloyd lost the Rothko estate after amajor lawsuit in the 1970s.
(Pace Gallery eventually scooped it up.)
The gallery countersued, accusing the Levais of fraud, defamation, and an unfounded sense of entitlement.
Today, his great-grandson Guy Wildenstein leads the multibillion-dollar empire.
Now its one of the biggest and most influential contemporary art spaces in the world.
The next year, two top executivesleft Paceafter the gallery investigated allegations of misconduct against them.
But its hard to work in art without things getting ugly.
Correction: This story has been updated to clarify Helly Nahmads alleged links to organized crime.
