Hasta La Ideas

(Illustration: Charlie Powell for The New York Times)

The New York Times Sunday Business Section knocked one out of the park again yesterday with an above-the-fold graphic that had them chuckling in the waning hours of the Armory Show. Following in the footsteps of Lacie Argyle/Jennifer Daniel‘s swell Si Newhouse photo-montage portrait, illustrator Charlie Powell depicts art dealer Larry Gagosian as a magician pulling one of Cy Twombly‘s glorious 2007 peony paintings and a flutter of cash out of his hat. The graphic accompanied David Segal‘s profile of the press-shy Gagosian, who Segal described as “dogged, unreadable, and enamored with risk.”

Gagosian did not return Segal’s callls for an interview, but Powell delivers. His Larry the Magnificent sports an enigmatic expression—we detect a certain Koonsian exuberance—while behind him floats a row of illustrated masterpieces familiar to any regular visitor to the Gagosian empire: Warhol‘s “Turquoise Marilyn” (purchased by hedge fund manager Steven A. Cohen from collector Stefan Edlis in a 2007 private deal brokered by Gagosian), a 1963 spray enamel work by David Smith, and a painting from Twombly’s 2005 Bacchus series, one of which is owned by Aby Rosen and until recently hung in the lobby of the Gramercy Park Hotel.

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