There’s a lot not to like about the art market, including its long-standing propensity for making collectors rich while leaving “starving artists” in the financial dust.
John “Jay” Jordan II is a founder of the Jordan Company, a private equity firm with offices in Chicago and New York, and of Jordan Industries, a Deerfield-based holding company. A philanthropist, he has signed Warren Buffett’s “Giving Pledge,” promising at least 50 percent of his fortune to charitable causes, and has already donated $150 million to his alma mater, Notre Dame. When his daughter, Colby, married Alberto Mugrabi (whose art-collecting family owns the world’s largest stash of work by Andy Warhol) on the French Riviera last year, both Vogue and Forbes covered the wedding.
There has been one domestic exception: California passed its own Resale Royalties Act in 1976, specifying a 5 percent royalty on sales of more than $1,000 when the seller is a California resident or the sale occurs in California. But enforcement has proven difficult: the courts have ruled that the law can’t apply to sales outside of the state, and its constitutionality is still being litigated (with royalty collection halted in the meantime).
