Ronald Lauder's $135M Klimt Acquisition and the Perils of Art Market Inflation

Ronald Lauder purchased Gustav Klimt's Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer for $135 million, a record for a modern painting, surpassing the $100 million paid for Picasso's Garçon à la pipe. The painting, previously held by the Museum of the 20th Century in Vienna, will enter Lauder's Neue Galerie in New York, a private museum dedicated to German and Austrian art. The acquisition highlights Austria's failure to negotiate a fair restitution with the heirs of the original owner, who had the painting confiscated by Nazis. Lauder, a longtime MoMA trustee, has championed European modernism in American museums, challenging their focus on American and School of Paris art. The article also discusses the pernicious effects of soaring art prices: museums cannot compete with billionaires, conversations focus on money over aesthetic value, and living artists face pressure from market hype, leading to creative blocks, careerism, and loss of risk-taking. The author notes that while making money in art seems easy, making art has become increasingly difficult.