cushy pillows by the pool of the Delano plopping cherries and cheese cubes into our mouths. Dennis Hopper held up the empty bowl for me to spit my cherry pits.
I loved watching Kitty in her element, demanding faux-urgent ten minute “holds” on auction bids, or romping through the design district, matching eclectic lamp shades to newly discovered artists. Nearby, New York’s biggest dealers, people like Larry Gagosian and Mary Boone, tried to listen in on what Kitty was in on. She was the Pied Piper of her world, bringing artists, dealers and investors together. At private Sotheby’s dinners the Veuve Cliquot flowed wildly, as insiders worshiped the latest contemporary artist from Prague who was going to be
‘huge!!!”
And then we’d be up at the crack of dawn to get into the NADA Fair early enough to see….
“Daniel Reich’s booth!” she’d explain calling back to answer from twenty feet in front of me. “Come on, Libby. Hustle,” she’d return to my side to drag me along with one hand, her other hand clamping her cell to her ear. “Don’t go higher than one million! No. Hold there. Because I said so!”
Kitty’s passion for art pierced right to any potential buyer’s soul, whether naïve with money to burn or the most discriminating - like those who promised never to sell - only to find themselves seduced by Kitty to “Buy now! Are you crazy? This is Amazon.com in 1999!”
Kitty could pedal a painting the way Monet could make a lily shimmer, the way Pollack could drip dots on a canvas and be called a genius, and the way Peggy Guggenheim could sip champagne in a Parisian café while the French countryside was being bombed. And when Kitty loved an artist, she loved him, even if nobody else did, just like Guggenheim, who, when told by the Louvre that her collection was “worthless,” stashed all those soon-to-be famous paintings in a barnyard. And no doubt, calmly ordered another glass of champagne.
Kitty managed to get us into every party. In her Prada attire she was more colorful than a Miami sunset. In my Ann Taylor dress, I’d just stand and smile, sipping my sauvignon blanc, looking like a sneaker lace stuck in an escalator and going nowhere. Eventually, I was edged out of the circle of conversation. What did a woman who wrote “To Breast Feed or Not to Breast Feed: That Is the Question?” have to say to Jerry Speyer, a “famous collector” about Abstract Expressionism?
When the artist Kehinde Wiley shook my hand, all I could think was “Kehinde? That’s really your name?”
Kitty was like radar to every potential collector. In the 80s, she had turned one million dollars into fourteen million for Ahmet Ertegun, the founder of Atlantic records. Her main clients were wealthy Wall Streeters who knew nothing about art, but everything about spending, spending, and more spending. Now Wall Street had crashed, the art market had slumped, and Kitty had an ever bigger problem – the Wall Street guys’ wives. It was clearer than the financial scroll across a CNN screen that they were threatened by Kitty’s beauty. When Kitty saw one of these wives standing stupid like a damsel-of-the-art-world-distress,she’d whisper to me, “She’s a wealthy wife. Her scarlet soles give her away.”
“You can tell she has money by the bottom of her shoes?” I asked.
“Red bottoms mean Christian Louboutin,” said Kitty. “French shoes - short for money.”
“Learn something new everyday,” I mumbled into my crystal flute, but Kitty was already sauntering over to the potential buyer.
*
My daydreaming comes to an abrupt halt as I grab onto the door handle of the taxi and rearrange my rib cage. Anatolij, my Russian driver, makes a screeching stop outside the café, because when you’ve reached your destination and your heart has returned from your stomach, be prepared to jump out of your cab quickly – as quickly as you ripped open your wallet to pay the driver. He’s on a clock after all, so the
I loved watching Kitty in her element, demanding faux-urgent ten minute “holds” on auction bids, or romping through the design district, matching eclectic lamp shades to newly discovered artists. Nearby, New York’s biggest dealers, people like Larry Gagosian and Mary Boone, tried to listen in on what Kitty was in on. She was the Pied Piper of her world, bringing artists, dealers and investors together. At private Sotheby’s dinners the Veuve Cliquot flowed wildly, as insiders worshiped the latest contemporary artist from Prague who was going to be
‘huge!!!”
And then we’d be up at the crack of dawn to get into the NADA Fair early enough to see….
“Daniel Reich’s booth!” she’d explain calling back to answer from twenty feet in front of me. “Come on, Libby. Hustle,” she’d return to my side to drag me along with one hand, her other hand clamping her cell to her ear. “Don’t go higher than one million! No. Hold there. Because I said so!”
Kitty’s passion for art pierced right to any potential buyer’s soul, whether naïve with money to burn or the most discriminating - like those who promised never to sell - only to find themselves seduced by Kitty to “Buy now! Are you crazy? This is Amazon.com in 1999!”
Kitty could pedal a painting the way Monet could make a lily shimmer, the way Pollack could drip dots on a canvas and be called a genius, and the way Peggy Guggenheim could sip champagne in a Parisian café while the French countryside was being bombed. And when Kitty loved an artist, she loved him, even if nobody else did, just like Guggenheim, who, when told by the Louvre that her collection was “worthless,” stashed all those soon-to-be famous paintings in a barnyard. And no doubt, calmly ordered another glass of champagne.
Kitty managed to get us into every party. In her Prada attire she was more colorful than a Miami sunset. In my Ann Taylor dress, I’d just stand and smile, sipping my sauvignon blanc, looking like a sneaker lace stuck in an escalator and going nowhere. Eventually, I was edged out of the circle of conversation. What did a woman who wrote “To Breast Feed or Not to Breast Feed: That Is the Question?” have to say to Jerry Speyer, a “famous collector” about Abstract Expressionism?
When the artist Kehinde Wiley shook my hand, all I could think was “Kehinde? That’s really your name?”
Kitty was like radar to every potential collector. In the 80s, she had turned one million dollars into fourteen million for Ahmet Ertegun, the founder of Atlantic records. Her main clients were wealthy Wall Streeters who knew nothing about art, but everything about spending, spending, and more spending. Now Wall Street had crashed, the art market had slumped, and Kitty had an ever bigger problem – the Wall Street guys’ wives. It was clearer than the financial scroll across a CNN screen that they were threatened by Kitty’s beauty. When Kitty saw one of these wives standing stupid like a damsel-of-the-art-world-distress,she’d whisper to me, “She’s a wealthy wife. Her scarlet soles give her away.”
“You can tell she has money by the bottom of her shoes?” I asked.
“Red bottoms mean Christian Louboutin,” said Kitty. “French shoes - short for money.”
“Learn something new everyday,” I mumbled into my crystal flute, but Kitty was already sauntering over to the potential buyer.
*
My daydreaming comes to an abrupt halt as I grab onto the door handle of the taxi and rearrange my rib cage. Anatolij, my Russian driver, makes a screeching stop outside the café, because when you’ve reached your destination and your heart has returned from your stomach, be prepared to jump out of your cab quickly – as quickly as you ripped open your wallet to pay the driver. He’s on a clock after all, so the
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