Four works previously confiscated in relation to the 1MDB scandal, including two Basquiat works, were auctioned online for $36 million.
The collage Red Man One (1982) by Jean-Michael Basquiat brought the bulk of the revenues for the night, selling for a whopping $22.02 million. Another work by him, Self Portrait (1982), fetched $8.3 million. Pablo Picasso’s Tête de taureau et broc (1939) was sold for $5 million. The fourth work was Child with a Toy Hand Grenade by Diane Arbus, which was sold for $500,150. The auction, which was online-only, was organized by Gaston and Sheehan in Texas. It opened on July 16 and closed on September 4.
The works were part of the infamous 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) scandal, which first broke in 2016. It was one of the biggest cases of wealth embezzlement and involved high-profile names, including the president of Malaysia. Reportedly, $4.5 billion was siphoned from the fund between 2009 and 2014.
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The US Justice Department seized the four artworks between 2016 and 2020. Basquiat’s Self Portrait was surrendered by Christopher McFarland, who co-founded a company with the stepson of the Malaysian president. The other Basquiat, the Picasso, and the Arbus paintings belonged to Malaysian businessman Low Taek Jho, called the mastermind of the 1MDB scheme. Jho gifted the paintings to Leonardo DiCaprio, who starred in the film The Wolf of Wall Street, which was reportedly produced from the embezzled funds, and later submitted them to the US government.
