In the early 1990s this very rich guy who always has his name come up when you are talking about very bad people, was approached by the FBI who informed him that the Calder sculpture he owns, and paid an exorbitant amount of money for, was a fake.

The agents asked if he wanted to file criminal charges against the seller.

Without bruising his inflated ego to the denizens of NYC he refused to make a criminal complaint.

Now he is trying to offload the faux Calder sculpture along with his other fine pieces of art.

Ronald Perelman

Billionaire Ronald Perelman to Sell Matisse and Miro Paintings in Sotheby’s London Sale for £28m – 2020

American billionaire Ronald Perelman announced last week his decision to rework his investment empire as the global economy faces a tightrope walk to recovery. Apart from exploring opportunities to sell a portion of his stake, the tycoon seems to also be looking into selling his priced artworks. It is said that Perelman has put his two paintings by Joan Miró and Henri Matisse on offer for a combined total of £28m (US$53.3m).

According to Bloomberg, the Perelman lots, namely Miró’s Peinture (Femme au Chapeau Rouge) and Matisse’s Danseuse dans un interieur, carrelage vert et noir, will appear on the auction stage at Sotheby’s London’s evening sale on 28 July. Both Perelman’s investment company and Sotheby’s declined to respond. – Source

Continuing His Grand Sell-Off, Billionaire Ronald Perelman Is Offloading His French Design Collection at Sotheby’s – Oct 2022

The offloading of billionaire Ronald Perelman’s assets continues apace. First it was the private jet and yacht, next the majority of his shares in AM General, and now, the man once labelled America’s richest is offloading his collection of French Art Deco and modernist design.

Announced by Sotheby’s on October 24 via Instagram, the sale titled “The Perelman Collection: Masterworks of Design” will take place at the auction house’s New York headquarters on December 6. It’s being billed as one of the most important and extensive collections of French design ever to hit the block. The 120-lot sale has a combined estimate of between $14 million and $21 million.

“This curated body of work from the Perelman Collection tells the story of a quintessential period shaped by experimentation, innovation and a quest for modernity,” Sotheby’s said in a statement.

Perelman has been amassing a vast collection of early modern design pieces since the 1980s. The sale is set to include works from Irish furniture designer Eileen Gray, Alberto and Diego Giacometti, master cabinetmaker Eugène Printz, and Art Deco pioneer Émile-Jacques Ruhlmann, among many others.

Although a full catalogue is yet to be released, an exhibit attached to court filings in an ongoing insurance lawsuit in New York State lists works that could potentially go to auction. They include a Paul Dupré-Lafon blonde oak secretaire valued at $2.5 million, two Jean Dunand valued at $2.5 million each, and a set of 12 Émile-Jacques Ruhlmann side chairs valued a just under $1 million.

The sale arrives amid an ongoing legal battle between Perelman and a group of insurance companies over the extent of damage dealt to five blue-chip paintings during a 2018 fire at his East Hamptons estate. Three limited liability companies affiliated with Perelman, known collectively AGP Holdings, claim to be owed $410 million for damage to two Andy Warhol pieces, two Ed Ruscha works, and a Cy Twombly painting AGP valued at $125 million—$55 million more than Twombly’s current auction record.

The insurers, who have paid out around $141 million for other fire-related property damage, rejected AGP’s claims, insisting that any damage to the five works could not be attributed to the fire. The lawsuit has been unfolding since 2020 but had gone unnoticed since the original filings do not identify Perelman or the fire’s location. – Source

Read more on these Tags: