Friday, September 14, 2007

GIVE ALL THE LeROYS TO THE LITTLE RICH BOYS: I hate to link to stories in the Wall Street Journal because of the whole paid-subscription issue, but this one is too bizarre to pass up. Apparently the new new niche among collectors of expensive artwork is children. Children such as nine-year-old Dakota King, who has been collecting since she was four and about whom one gallery owner effused, "she has such a great eye for art." Or eleven-year-old Charlie Rosen, who has decorated his room with Warhol drawings of airplanes and who recently spent $352,000 at a Sotheby's auction to buy a Jeff Koons sculpture of a gnome. Or the positively venerable Taylor Houghton, whose candy-themed art collection is sufficiently extensive that the 14 year old fields calls from dealers offering tips when new pieces become available.

The article's author, Kelly Crow, calls the phenomenon "a collision of the art boom, the wealth boom and the Baby Einstein approach to parenting," which I suppose is accurate on some level, but to me it just seems kind of weird.

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