Giuseppe Nahmad

Giuseppe Nahmad, also known as Joe Nahmad, was an influential art dealer who specialized in impressionist, post-impressionist, and modern art. He and his brothers, David and Ezra, amassed a multi-billion fortune in buying, selling, and collecting works of arts of 19th- and 20th-century artists, such as Picasso, Matisse, Monet, and Renoir. They also owned one of the largest private art collections in the world, known as the Nahmad Collection, which contains over 4,500 artworks. Giuseppe Nahmad was born in 1932 in Aleppo, Syria, to a wealthy Jewish family of bankers. He moved to Milan in 1957, where he started his art dealership. He discovered Lucio Fontana and commissioned paintings by Wifredo Lam. He also bought several Picassos at low prices and sold them for huge profits. He expanded his business to Japan in the 1980s and continued buying art through the 1989 downturn. He died in Monte Carlo on 23 November 2012, at the age of 80. He was buried in Jerusalem, Israel. He never married and had no children. He was known for his sharp eye, his passion for art, and his discreet and professional manner.