Art Collector Says He Lost Warhols and Harings to L.A. Fire
by NYT
As the flames grew closer and closer to his home in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles and his teenage daughter pleaded with him over the phone to evacuate, Ron Rivlin decided to flee, taking three Andy Warhols with him, all that he could carry.
“I grabbed those, and as I was leaving, I saw the fire ahead of me on the hill,” Rivlin said.
When he returned a few days later he found that his home had been destroyed, and with it his considerable art collection. Rivlin said he had lost more than two dozen Warhols — he owns a gallery in West Hollywood that specializes in Warhol — along with works by Keith Haring, Damien Hirst, John Baldessari and Kenny Scharf.
“It’s dust at this point,” Rivlin said on Monday as he returned to the site of his former home, which was built about five years ago, specially designed with his art collection in mind.
Now, it is a pit of rubble. Standing ankle-deep in the twisted metal and crumbled concrete, Rivlin searched for any remnants of the art collection he was forced to abandon.