Top 200 Collectors

Pierre Lagrange cofounded the hedge fund GLG Partners with Jonathan Green and Noam Gottesman (who collects postwar and contemporary art and has also appeared on the ARTnews Top 200 list). The company was purchased by Man Capital in 2010 in a $1.6 billion deal. While Gottesman left the company, Lagrange stayed on and is now senior adviser to the Man Group. Before opening GLG, he worked at Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan. He also acquired the Savile Row fashion house Huntsman in 2013. The Daily Mail reported in 2015 that the Belgian-born macher has a net worth in the area of £500 million.

In 2012, Lagrange filed a suit against the since-closed Knoedler Gallery in New York for selling him a fake Jackson Pollock painting for $17 million, which was settled on undisclosed terms. His lawsuit also prompted fashion magnate and Sotheby’s chairman Domenico De Sole to sue the gallery, which led to a widely publicized trial. In a 2018 Robb Report interview he also recounted a passion for luxury cars and motorcycles. Every two years, Lagrange joins hundreds of Harleys on a massive bike tour. “At a road rally in Portugal last year, I bought an enormous baroque Meissen centerpiece from the 1800s that depicts three enslaved warriors,” he told the magazine. “It’s extraordinary, and it is quite shocking that people made contraptions like this. I find beauty everywhere I go.” Later he revealed some noteworthy acquisitions: a small black-and-white Rothko and an Avery Singer work he selected with his son.