Ramtin Naimi

Probably the most interesting thing I've learned about the art world, which is something I didn't appreciate until I started actively collecting, is quality of a painting versus just like work by a given artist.

And it's why you see certain Picassos sell for $5 million and one sell for $100 million.

I never truly understood the concept of masterpiece until I started actively collecting.

But on every exhibition put on by a new artist today, as I mentioned, there's 12 paintings and

Of those 12 paintings, there's probably one that's incredible that everyone's going to be fighting over and two that are really good that most people will be happy with.

And the rest of the show is the artist made 20 paintings and then the gallery was like, we could sell 12 of them.

What you start to notice over time is the most dramatic appreciation in art happens in the highest quality examples of their work.

If somebody could look back and be like, that was one of the best paintings that artist made.

And that's what's so special about Michael's collection is he has definitive masterpieces by some of the most iconic artists in history.

There are certain artists who have a lot of depth in their collection.

They might have 20 Picassos or they might have eight or nine Twomblies.

Michael, I think he's got three Picassos, but I think he's got the three best Picassos ever.

And he's got probably the best Mark Rothko I've ever seen.

He's got the best Franz Klein I'd seen.

even on contemporary artists.

He has the single best Laura Owens abstraction I think that was ever released to the public.

I think what he was really good at doing is, like anything else, there's competitive dynamics.

People get drawn into the competitive game of, well, I can't get that painting, just give me this one instead.

I think a lot of it has to do with the discipline of waiting until you can actually get the highest quality examples of the best work by these artists.

Because there's no shortage of collector's homes you could walk into.