Among other artworks sold by Philbrick and now contested by investors is a $12.5 million painting by Jean-Michel Basquiat, a Yayoi Kusama installation sold to the Saudi royal family and a 2010 untitled painting by Christopher Wool.
At its zenith under Klimt and co-founder Guy Naggar, Dawnay Day owned a host of trophy properties including the Michelin-starred London restaurant The Wolseley and the Lygon Arms, a hotel in the Cotswolds where Oliver Cromwell stayed before the Battle of Worcester in 1651. Klimt and Naggar were well-known for their love of art with pieces like Lucian Freud’s “Benefits Supervisor Sleeping,” which was sold for more than $30 million in 2008, hanging on their London office walls.
Such expensive tastes were much remarked-upon after the financial crisis tipped the highly leveraged property company into collapse in 2009. Klimt is now a director at Welbeck Investment Management.
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.