Eli Broad Continues To Buy For Los Angeles!

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/12/arts/12arts.html?pagewanted=all

While everyone else is either selling their art or donating it to museums outside of Los Angeles -
Eli Broad continues his buying ways.

November 12, 2005
Arts, Briefly

Record-Setting Buyer Identified

The mystery surrounding the buyer of David Smith's monumental sculpture at Sotheby's on Wednesday night is over. Joanne Heyler, director and chief curator of the Broad Art Foundation in Los Angeles, confirmed yesterday that Eli Broad, the Los Angeles financier, had purchased "Cubi XXVIII".

Mr. Broad paid $23.8 million for the elegantly composed steel sculpture, the last work in Smith's most desirable series. It was the highest price paid for any artwork during the last two weeks of Impressionist, modern and contemporary art auctions, and the highest ever paid for a work of contemporary art sold at auction. "He bought the sculpture for his own personal collection," Ms. Heyler said of Mr. Broad in a telephone interview. "

But he realizes that it is a museum-quality piece, and so he intends to lend it to museums." Besides gracing his home in Los Angeles, Ms. Heyler said, the sculpture will be displayed at the Broad Contemporary Art Museum, a new building that will be part of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

This week Mr. Broad also bought a 1961 painting by Cy Twombly, "Untitled (Rome)," for $7.9 million, also at Sotheby's. "That was also for his personal collection," Ms. Heyler said. "But it, too, will go on museum walls." CAROL VOGEL