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"  Anyone who thinks the art world is dull hasn&amp;#039;t visited an auction house&amp;#039;s sales room. This is a place where the people with the foresight to sell wield just as much power as those who can buy; where dealers bid into the millions just to maintain the value of their stock; and where advisers play the field in order to drive up their commissions. We polled dozens of art-world insiders to compile a list of the 10 most powerful people in the auction world today. They&amp;#039;re the ones spending the most money, making the most money, and defining the market as we know it.  Key: (C) Collector, (D) Dealer Fran\u00E7ois Pinault (C) Provenance: Paris. Sources of Wealth: Owns PPR (Gucci, Puma, and YSL), Ch\u00E2teau Latour, and Vail Ski Resort...not to mention Christie&amp;#039;s itself; the third richest man in France. Collects: Warhol, Picasso, Jeff Koons, Subodh Gupta, and many, many others. (His collection has been valued at more than $1.4 billion.) Selections are regularly on view at his two contemporary art spaces in Venice. Current exhibitions include &amp;quot;In Praise of Doubt,&amp;quot; at Punta della Dogana, which includes work by Maurizio Cattelan, Donald Judd, and Paul McCarthy; and &amp;quot;The World Belongs to You&amp;quot; at Palazzo Grassi, with Marlene Dumas, Zhang Huan, and others. (Both exhibits are up through the end of the year.) Biggest Buy: It doesn&amp;#039;t get much bigger than the $1.2 billion he paid for Christie&amp;#039;s in 1998. There&amp;#039;s also the $36.5 million he reportedly paid for two paintings by Yves Klein one evening at Sotheby&amp;#039;s in 2008 via mega-adviser Philippe S\u00E9galot. Known For: A long-standing rivalry with fellow player/luxury goods magnate Bernard Arnault. Larry Gagosian (D) Provenance: New York. Source of Wealth: His eponymous blue-chip gallery, with 12 locations around the world. Collects: Impressionist, Modern, and contemporary masterworks by the artists and artists&amp;#039; estates he represents, with Koons, Richard Prince, Robert Rauschenberg, and Giacometti among them. Biggest Buy: Paid $48.8 million for Matisse&amp;#039;s Nu de Dos, 4 \u00C9tat (Back IV), 1930-78 (posthumous cast) at Christie&amp;#039;s New York in November 2010 (on behalf of a client). Known For: Working the phone while in the salesroom. The Al-Thani Family (C) Provenance: Doha, Qatar. Sources of Wealth: Natural gas; part of the Qatari royal family. Collects: Photography, Arab art, Art Deco furniture, Modern and contemporary art. Biggest Buy: Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani was the reported buyer of Rothko&amp;#039;s 1950 White Center (Yellow, Pink and Lavender on Rose) and Bacon&amp;#039;s Study from Innocent X, from 1962 \u2014 two purchases that totaled nearly $126 million in one night at Sotheby&amp;#039;s New York in 2007. Known For: Fiercely guarding their privacy. &amp;quot;They&amp;#039;re never in the room,&amp;quot; notes a New York\u2013based adviser, adding that they tend to bid through Philippe S\u00E9galot. They&amp;#039;ve been acquiring art steadily to fill their new Arab Museum of Modern Art and their I.M. Pei\u2013designed Museum of Islamic Art, both in Doha. Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani openly expressed his interest in purchasing Christie&amp;#039;s if the opportunity arose (which isn&amp;#039;t so far-fetched \u2014 after all, he bought Harrods department store in 2010). The Mugrabi Family (Jos\u00E9 and sons David and Alberto) (D) Provenance: New York. Sources of Wealth: Art (all three are private dealers). Collects: Jean-Michel Basquiat, Damien Hirst, George Condo, Tom Wesselmann, and Warhol (they own some 800 examples of the Pop master&amp;#039;s work). Biggest Buy: Paid $27.5 million for a Warhol &amp;quot;fright wig&amp;quot; self-portrait at Christie&amp;#039;s New York in May. In general, though, they tend to buy low (in the $1 million range) and sell high (they consigned their 1962 Warhol Men in Her Life at Phillips de Pury for $63.4 million in November 2010). Known For: Superior strategizing. &amp;quot;There&amp;#039;s a lot of insider trading in the art market,&amp;quot; says one salesroom regular, &amp;quot;and the Mugrabis are as insider as it gets.&amp;quot; The self-professed &amp;quot;market makers&amp;quot; are frequent underbidders on works by the artists they collect to keep the value of their inventory high. (They&amp;#039;re also known to occasionally collaborate with Gagosian.) And they all but control the market for Warhol. They&amp;#039;re easy to spot: Jose, who is known for his aggressive bidding style, likes to sit on the aisle at Christie&amp;#039;s and in the sixth row at Sotheby&amp;#039;s. The Nahmad Family (D) Provenance: New York and London. Sources of Wealth: Investments and art, with gallery outposts in New York and London. Collects: The Nahmads are to the first half of the 20th century what the Mugrabis are to the second. Think Picasso (lots of Picasso), Rothko, and Francis Bacon. Biggest Buy: There are many, but among the best known is Monet&amp;#039;s Le Pont du chemin de fer Argenteuil, from 1873, which they bought in 1988 for $12.4 million....and resold for more than $40 million at Christie&amp;#039;s in 2008. Known For: Mastering the art of the flip. In 2007 the family auctioned off a 1955 Picasso they had bought in 1995 for a $28 million profit. Like the Mugrabis, they&amp;#039;re always in the room (usually front and center). Also like the Mugrabis, they&amp;#039;re known to bid up the price of works by the artists they collect, then bow out just before they reach their hammer price. Mitchell Rales (C) Provenance: Potomac, MD. Sources of Wealth: Industry. Collects: The biggest and the best \u2014 Matisse, Pollock, Rothko, Rauschenberg, Judd, Koons, Serra \u2014 which he keeps in his private Glenstone Museum, located on the same sprawling property as his home. Only a select few are permitted to visit each year (and none of them are journalists). Biggest Buy: Remarkably, unknown. Known For: Buying up a storm...without anyone discovering what, exactly, he&amp;#039;s buying. &amp;quot;He has spent an absolute fortune in the past few years,&amp;quot; says one observer. &amp;quot;If there&amp;#039;s a really great piece coming to market, a lot of dealers call Mitch first.&amp;quot; Also serves on the board of the Hirshhorn Museum &amp;amp;amp; Sculpture Garden and the National Gallery of Art. Steve Cohen (C) Provenance: Greenwich, CT. Source of Wealth: Founded SAC Capital Advisors, a prominent hedge fund that&amp;#039;s now being scrutinized by the SEC. Net worth is around $8 billion. Collects: Picasso, Bacon, Warhol, Johns, de Kooning, Koons, and Gerhard Richter, among others, but Cohen has been in selling mode as of late \u2014 he consigned Warhol&amp;#039;s Liz #5 (Early Colored Liz), 1963, mere hours after Taylor&amp;#039;s death. It sold for $26.9 million at Phillips de Pury in May. Biggest Buy: While Cohen has made some major nine-figure buys on the private market (including a Johns for $110 million and de Kooning&amp;#039;s Woman III, 1952\u201353, for $137.5 million), his biggest moves in the salesroom include the $35.4 million he paid for Warhol&amp;#039;s Coca-Cola 4 (Large Coca-Cola), 1962, at Sotheby&amp;#039;s in November 2010. Known For:His close personal relationship with Sotheby&amp;#039;s. The auction house has hosted exhibitions of pieces from his collection, and he is an investor in the company. Bernard Arnault (C) Provenance: Paris. Source of Wealth: CEO of Louis Vuitton Mo\u00EBt Hennessy; net worth reported at $27.5 billion. Collects: Warhol, Basquiat, Damien Hirst, Takashi Murakami. Biggest Buy: Arguably the reported $120 million he paid for Phillips auction house (now Phillips de Pury &amp;amp;amp; Co.) in 1999. He sold his share in the company in 2003. He is also said to have paid $32.5 million for a Warhol self-portrait. This season, Arnault is thought to be very much in buying mode in anticipation of the 2012 opening of his Frank Gehry \u2014 designed Louis Vuitton Foundation for Creation museum in Paris (which is reportedly costing $127 million). Known For: Initiating Louis Vuitton&amp;#039;s now-signature collaborations with the very contemporary artists he&amp;#039;s been known to collect (Murakami, Prince, and Vanessa Beecroft among them). Also known for his stealth. &amp;quot;He&amp;#039;s definitely buying at auction, but I don&amp;#039;t know if you ever see him do it,&amp;quot; notes one New York dealer. &amp;quot;He has people fronting for him.&amp;quot; William Acquavella (D) Provenance: New York. Source of Wealth: His eponymous Upper East Side gallery (founded by his father in 1921), which regularly exhibits work by such mid-century masters as Pollock, Rauschenberg, de Kooning, Johns, and Rothko. Acquavella also represents Lucian Freud. Collects: Picasso, Matisse, Bonnard, and L\u00E9ger, most of which he resells on the secondary market. Biggest Buy: Maurice de Vlaminck&amp;#039;s Paysage de Banlieue, 1905, for $22.5 million at Christie&amp;#039;s New York in May (Steve Cohen was the seller). Known For: Bidding and buying in every sale. &amp;quot;He&amp;#039;s the biggest boy in the room,&amp;quot; says one adviser. He is, of course, a major player in the sort of deals that happen outside of the auction room as well. Acquavella brokered the famously doomed $139 million Picasso sale between Steve Wynn and Steve Cohen that fell through when Wynn punctured the painting with his elbow. Actor Steve Martin is also a client. Peter Brant (C) Provenance: Greenwich, CT. Source of Wealth: Publishing (He owns Brant Publications, home of Art in America and Interview). Collects: &amp;quot;He has one of the best Warhol collections in the world,&amp;quot; says one insider. Rounding out his massive holdings are works by Basquiat, Koons, Maurizio Cattelan, Fischer, and many others (some of which are on view at Brant&amp;#039;s by-appointment-only Brant Foundation Art Study Center in Greenwich). Biggest Buy: All those pre-boom Warhols (he started collecting the artist&amp;#039;s work in the 1970s). Known For: Savvy selling. Brant cashed in on the late-Picasso craze in 2010 when he sold his 1969 painting Le baiser at Christie&amp;#039;s London for $18 million \u2014 nearly $13 million more than he paid for it seven years prior. &amp;quot;He&amp;#039;s a collector who trades,&amp;quot; adds a market insider. &amp;quot;He&amp;#039;s not adverse to manipulating the market.&amp;quot; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.townandcountrymag.com/leisure/arts-and-culture/reviews/a908/art-collectors-and-dealers/>