The “David Herbert collection” was said to be one of the great troves of unknown Abstract Expressionist masterpieces—Pollocks, de Koonings, Rothkos, etc. But is it? The reputations of New York’s once venerable Knoedler gallery and of art-world doyenne Ann Freedman hang on the answer
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Tucked away in Beverly Hills, the secluded neighborhood of Benedict Canyon is home to the sprawling estates of Jay Leno, Bruce Springsteen, and David Beckham, as well as moguls David Geffen and Ron Burkle. But when a mysterious Saudi prince announced plans to build a big spread of his own—85,000-square-feet big, complete with servants’ quarters and a private “sons’ villa”—the claws came out. Led by Martha Karsh, the hard-charging wife of a billionaire investor, the neighbors have hired a team of lawyers and launched a publicity blitzkrieg to stop construction. Michael Shnayerson documents the real-estate war galvanizing this once quiet Los Angeles enclave.
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John White’s family has been working its 57-acre oceanfront farm in Sagaponack since 1695, the last holdouts against a tide of Wall Streeter mansions. But in an effort to save his children's inheritance—by selling 10 of those acres to a Houston oil mogul—White may have lost it all
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Eight years after Larry Rivers’s death, both his pioneering art and his hypersexual private life are getting fresh attention. In the 70s, he filmed his adolescent daughters topless for a documentary, Growing, that the younger one, Emma Rivers Tamburlini, says is nothing less than child pornography. With battle lines drawn between Emma and those who guard Rivers’s legacy, the author asks whether the artist was shattering taboos or destroying innocence.
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