The Art of Being Bill Gates
Yahoo | at | by Mike
I've never been invited to Bill Gates' home. But I'm told by someone who has that outside his personal library hangs Lost on the Grand Banks [1898], one of the masterworks of the American artist Winslow Homer. Gates paid $36 million for the painting in 1998, when he quietly bought it in a private transaction that saw what is believed to be the highest price ever paid for an American painting. The Room of Flowers by Childe Hassam, for which Gates recently paid $20 million, hangs inside the library. In the hallway, visible from the library, is Polo Crowd [1910], one of the greatest works by George Bellows. It was sold for $27.5 million at a Sotheby's auction in December, 1999, to an anonymous buyer now known to have been Gates.