Paintings and a photograph tied to the 1MDB scandal were sold at auction Thursday, with one artwork from Jean-Michel Basquiat fetching more than double its previous price.
A Pablo Picasso still life, two works by Basquiat and a print of a Diane Arbus photograph had high bids totalling $35.8 million as the online auction closed. It represented the latest effort by the US government to claw back some of the $4.5 billion siphoned from a Malaysian sovereign wealth fund between 2009 and 2015.
The sale was conducted by Gaston & Sheehan Auctioneers, a family-owned business in Pflugerville, Texas, that liquidates old cars and office furniture from local governments but also has a contract with the US Marshals Service, the source of the 1MDB loot. Prices had been at bargain levels earlier in the day, but shot up as the auction closed. The winning bidders weren’t identified by name.
“These sold right where they should be in today’s market, more or less,” said Dane Jensen, an art adviser who works on high-end transactions. “The results — which were a slow incremental drip to the finish line — would, I imagine, be a good outcome for the auctioneers and the victims.”
More than $1.7 billion in assets tied to the 1MDB affair have been recovered, the Justice Department said earlier this year. The sprawling scandal involved corruption, money laundering and celebrity, and three of the artworks auctioned Thursday had been owned by the actor Leonardo DiCaprio. They were given to him by Malaysian financier Jho Low, the alleged mastermind of the scheme, who is still a fugitive, believed to be hiding out in China. DeCaprio hasn’t been accused of any wrongdoing.
The auction for Basquiat’s Red Man One, a neo-expressionist work that’s more than 6 feet tall, closed at $22 million. Low bought the work for $9.4 million from a Manhattan gallery in 2012 using funds diverted from a 1MDB bond transaction, according to the US.
The black-and-white photo by Arbus, known as Child With a Toy Hand Grenade in Central Park, NYC, was purchased by Low for $750,000 in November 2013 with 1MDB funds, the US says. Low gave it to DiCaprio as a gift in March 2014, prosecutors said. Its top bid was $500,150.
Low bought the Picasso, Tete de Taureau et Broc, for $3.28 million in 2014 with 1MDB money, the US said. A Low associate later gave it to DiCaprio, according to the government. The Picasso fetched $5 million at auction.
The fourth item sold is a crayon and felt-pen drawing by Basquiat known as Self Portrait (1982) that was surrendered to the US by The Wolf of Wall Street producer Joey McFarland, who said he received it as a gift from Low and his accomplices. McFarland’s production company, Red Granite Pictures, which funded the Oscar-nominated film that starred DiCaprio, later paid $60 million without admitting wrongdoing to settle US claims the funds were siphoned from 1MDB.
The artwork’s closing price was $8.33 million.
By Patricia Hurtado
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