Meet the wealthy art collectors with galleries in their homes

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Meet the wealthy art collectors with galleries in their homes

Entrepreneur Grant Cardone said he finds collecting and exhibiting art more fulfilling than investing.

Grant Cardone

Multimillionaire Grant Cardone, who has been collecting art for about 15 years, says he is an impulse buyer.

“I don't consider myself a connoisseur. I'm a newbie to the art world. If I like it, I buy it. I don't care who made it,” he told CNBC. In addition to the works displayed throughout his home, Cardone also owns an art gallery that houses his extensive collection.

CNBC spoke to Cardone via video call – behind him in his Miami home office was an untitled work by American graffiti artist Retna, which Cardone had purchased at an online auction.

“I clicked the button – without really doing any research … and got the piece … And it came here and I was absolutely thrilled with it,” he said. He paid “maybe $140,000” for the work, he said.

A piece entitled “It's Now Time” by artist Fringe, on display in Grant Cardone's home gallery.

Grant Cardone

In a hallway in Cardone's house hang two works by American pop artist Burton Morris. Both depict red Coca-Cola bottles lined up in a repeating pattern and bearing the names Coca-Cola 50A and Coca-Cola 50B. “I bought this at Tommy Hilfiger… it reminds me of the importance of scale,” said Cardone – fashion designer Hilfiger is the previous owner of the house.

Cardone, a real estate investor and author of “The 10 X Rule: The Only Difference Between Success and Failure,” has about 17 million followers on social media and uses his platforms to occasionally offer advice on art investing.

“[Followers are] I'm starting to see the art that says, “Hey, you know, [has] was that good for you? And I think to myself, yes, it is good for me… It is better than the dollar or the euro… The stock market does not give me fulfillment, I do not go back and look at my Apple share and feel good about it. But I go into my gallery or the kitchen or my office and see a piece and think, man, that's super cool.”

The gallery in Grant Cardone's house in Miami. A print of a work by Basquiat can be seen at the bottom left.

Grant Cardone

Cardone's gallery – complete with floor-to-ceiling windows and a security guard – features a work by American contemporary artist Kenny Scharf titled “Blipsibshabshok” (1997), an abstract painting with colorful futuristic symbols. Cardone owns a second work by Scharf, “Controlopuss” (2018), a striking image of a red multi-legged creature that he purchased from Phillips auction house for $279,400.

“This is a Basquiat. The original would cost $45 million,” Cardone said, pointing to a print of a Jean-Michel Basquiat work titled “Flexible” (1984/2016). The original was sold by Phillips auction house in 2018 for $45.3 million. “I bought this work with the house,” he said, pointing to a work above the Basquiat titled “Read More” by American contemporary artist Al-Baseer Holly.

Grant said he chooses pieces to buy instinctively. “I try to step away from it. And if I see it over and over again or think about it over and over again, then I go back and say, OK, I have to have that,” he said.

“I never plan to sell this stuff. It's really for my personal pleasure. And you know, art makes me happy,” he said.

Female Art in Florence

Former investment banker Christian Levett takes a different approach. He has been collecting art for almost 30 years. He initially focused on paintings by old masters and Roman, Greek and Egyptian antiquities before turning to works by abstract expressionists.

Art collector Christian Levett offers private tours of his home in Florence, Italy. His collection consists largely of abstract expressionist works by female artists.

Christian Levett

In addition to owning an art museum in Mougins, France, Levett also leads tours of the artwork on the walls of his home in Florence, Italy, where he lives six months of the year — you could say his whole house is an art gallery. “It's kind of like a museum with a private tour,” Levett told CNBC by phone.

Near the city's famous Ponte Vecchio bridge, Levett's home has 20-foot ceilings, original frescoes and two floors of art, all by women. The collection consists largely of abstract expressionist works by artists such as Elaine de Kooning, Pat Passlof and Helen Frankenthaler.

Once or twice a week, Levett invites small groups to view his collection, often giving tours himself. The groups sometimes consist of students from American colleges that have branches in Florence, such as Harvard University and New York University, or they come from museum or support groups.

A 1977 painting by American artist Joan Mitchell is a highlight in Levett's collection, he said. The large work, titled “When They Were Gone,” is nearly 9 feet tall and 7 feet wide and hangs in his dining room.

Levett acquired it in 2015 for about $2.8 million.

Christian Levett has moved from collecting antiques to the works of female artists, seen here in his home in Florence.

Christian Levett

“At auction now, the painting will probably be worth $15 to $18 million … Mitchell has always been one of the most important painters of the 20th century,” Levett said.

He also praised an oil painting of John F. Kennedy by Elaine de Kooning, which was commissioned in 1963 as part of a series of portraits of the former U.S. president. Levett purchased the artwork in 2020, paying around $600,000 for it.

Levett said one reason he opens his home to students is because it might spark their interest in supporting art in the future. “The students … are the acorns of the art world,” he said.

Levett's focus is on works by female artists, and on June 21 he will reopen his museum in France as the Female Artists Mougin Museum. He is currently selling the museum's former art and antiques collection in a series of auctions at London auction house Christie's that have so far raised nearly £9.5 million ($11.9 million).

Bunker art

Christian and Karen Boros' house is located on the bunker in central Berlin, which houses their private art collection, the Boros Collection.

Reuters | Getty Images

In a unique art space in Berlin, married couple Christian and Karen Boros live in a 557-square-meter penthouse apartment above their private collection. The Boros collection is housed in a former World War II bunker, a massive high-rise that the couple purchased in 2003 and spent several years converting into a five-story exhibition space, while their home is on the sixth floor.

During the war, the bunker housed up to 4,000 people. Afterward, it was used as a tropical fruit warehouse before being converted into a nightclub. According to Raoul Zoellner, director of the Boros Foundation, 450 tons of concrete ceilings and walls were removed during the conversion into an exhibition space and home.

An artwork by Cyprien entitled “Gaillard Lesser Koa Moorhen”, 2013, part of the Boros Collection.

Boros Collection, Berlin | Noshe

Christian, an advertising entrepreneur, bought his first piece of art – a spade by German artist Joseph Beuys – when he was 18, he told the Financial Times.

“The bunker is not a museum … but an extraordinary project initiated by an enthusiastic couple of collectors who could not have imagined how many diamond saws would be needed to tear down dozens of bunker walls – or what that would set in motion,” Zoellner said in an emailed statement.

Karen and Christian Boros live in a penthouse apartment above their art collection in Berlin.

Max von Gumpenberg

Since the bunker was remodeled in 2008, almost 600,000 people have taken part in tours that alternate between showing works from the Boros collection, said Zoellner. There are currently 114 works on display that “focus on the human body in a variety of positions,” said Zoellner. “The works address the constant pressure to optimize, the gradual adaptation of our bodies to technical devices,” he said.

Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated the artists who were part of the abstract expressionist movement.