Eli Broad

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Eli Broad : biography

June 6, 1933 –

Some of the best-known works are by contemporary artists including:

  • John Baldessari’s two text paintings from 1967–68.
  • Jasper Johns – flag paintings (1960 and 1967), mixed-media "Watchman" (1964), "hatch" (1975)
  • Jeff Koons – fluorescent-lighted vacuum cleaners (1981), floating basketballs and bronze lifeboat (both 1985), stainless-steel bunny rabbit (1986), "Bubbles," a life-size porcelain portrait of Michael Jackson and his pet chimpanzee (1988) bought on May 15, 2001 for 5.6M, the first "Balloon Dog" (1994, in blue), and a "Cracked Egg" purchased for $3.5 million in 2006. Broad owns more than 20 Koons pieces, and donated €640,000 ($900,000) to help sponsor a 2008 Koons retrospective at Versailles (with fellow Koons collector François Pinault). ARTNews, Nov. 2008, p. 104: "One of the main sponsors helping to defray that cost was Pinault, who, officials say, contributed about €960,000 toward the exhibition’s €1.9 million ($2.6 million) total cost. (Other private sponsors, including Los Angeles property developers Eli and Edythe Broad, who count more than 20 Koons pieces in their collection, contributed €640,000 [$900,000], and the state chipped in €300,000 [$400,000], according to Versailles officials.)"
  • Roy Lichtenstein – three comic strip paintings (1962–65) and his 1969 abstraction of a mirror. In November 1994, Broad purchased "I…I’m Sorry" for $2.5 million USD at a Sotheby’s auction, paid with his American Express credit card, and thereby earned 2.5 million frequent flyer miles.
  • Robert Rauschenberg – 1954 red abstraction.
  • Damien Hirst – Away From the Flock.

, accessed, December 12, 2010

  • Edward Ruscha’s first word painting, "Boss" (1961) and his 1964 picture of Norm’s La Cienega Boulevard restaurant on fire.
  • Cindy Sherman – twelve photographs from 1977–80 photographs.
  • David Smith – Cubi XXVIII, executed in 1965. Broad’s October 2005 purchase at a Sotheby’s auction set a contemporary art auction record of $23,816,000. Broad claimed he had "been looking for a Cubi for more than a decade…I knew it would go way over the estimate and I was prepared, frankly, to pay more than what I bid."
  • Andy Warhol’s advertising image, "Where’s your rupture?", two Marilyn Monroe images, a twenty-fold silkscreen of Jackie Kennedy, an Elvis, a dance diagram, a wanted poster, an electric chair and a Campbell’s soup can—clam chowder, Manhattan style (purchased for $11.8 million) – all from 1961 to 1967.