Casino magnate pokes hole in $139 million Picasso deal
Picasso’s famed “Dream” painting turned into a nightmare for Las Vegas casino magnate Steve Wynn when he accidentally gave the multimillion-dollar canvas an elbow.
Wynn had just finalized a $139 million sale to another collector of his painting, called “Le Reve” (The Dream), when he poked a hole in the artwork while showing it to friends at his Las Vegas office a couple of weeks ago.
Director and screenwriter Nora Ephron, who witnessed and related the incident in her blog on the Huffington Post Web site (www.huffingtonpost.com), said Wynn had raised his hand to show the group something about Picasso’s 1932 portrait of his mistress Marie-Therese Walter.
“At that moment, his elbow crashed backward right through the canvas. There was a terrible noise,” Ephron wrote, noting that Wynn has retinitis pigmentosa, an eye disease that damages peripheral vision.
“Smack in the middle … was a black hole the size of a silver dollar. ‘Oh s**t,’ he said. ‘Look what I’ve done. Thank goodness it was me.’ ”
HAAAA HAAAA HAAAA…..This is great. I love it. I know this doesn’t exactly count for a darwin award nomination, but really, this is about the dumbest thing i have ever heard of. I he really wanted to throw away $139M, he could have just blown it in his Casino.
March 18th, 2007 at 12:49 pm
hi all. nice blog. its very ineresting article.