| Robert Mnuchin | |
| Nationality: | American |
| Alma Mater: | Yale University |
| Occupation: | Goldman Sachs partner, art dealer |
| Known For: | founder, Mnuchin Gallery |
| Spouse: | Elaine Terner Cooper (divorced) Adriana Mnuchin |
| Children: | 5, including Steven Mnuchin |
Robert E. Mnuchin (born 1933) is an American art dealer and former banker. After a 33-year career with Goldman Sachs, he retired to fund the Mnuchin Gallery in New York City.
As an art dealer, Mnuchin is particularly known for his long association with Dutch-American abstract painter Willem de Kooning. In 2019, he set a record for the most money paid for a work by a living artist by bidding $80 million for Jeff Koons' Rabbit.
Mnuchin is the father of Steven Mnuchin, who was the United States Secretary of the Treasury in the first Trump administration.[1]
Mnuchin was born in 1933,[2] and grew up in Scarsdale, New York. His parents, Harriet (Gevirtz) and Leon A. Mnuchin, were "modest collectors" of art, owning pieces by Franz Kline, Mark Rothko, and a piece by Henri Matisse later revealed as a fake.[3] Mnuchin graduated from Yale University in 1955.
After graduating from Yale, Mnuchin served in the US Army for two years as a private. He subsequently joined Goldman Sachs in 1957, staying there for 33 years. Mnuchin was named a general partner in 1967, headed the trading and arbitrage division in 1976, and joined the management committee in 1980. He, along with his co-worker at Goldman Gus Levy, developed Goldman's block trading business and ran the firm's equities division until his retirement in 1990 to pursue his interest in art.[4] [5] In his final year before retirement, he earned a reported $8.7 million salary.[6]
In 1992, Mnuchin opened his gallery, C & M Arts, with James Corcoran, a Los Angeles-based dealer.[7] Mnuchin became particularly known for his exhibitions of the work of Dutch-American abstract artist Willem de Kooning, including a 50-year retrospective. Among other shows, the gallery hosted an exhibition of Jeff Koons' work that, according to Koons' biographer, helped restore the sculptor to prominence after a previous failed show. His gallery has also exhibited work by Andy Warhol, Donald Judd, Frank Stella, John Chamberlain,[8] Alexander Calder,[9] Philip Guston, Damien Hirst, Julian Schnabel, David Hammons, Sam Gilliam, and Ed Clark.
In 2005, the name of gallery was changed to L&M Arts when Mnuchin entered into partnership with Dominique Lévy; she left in 2013 to open her own gallery nearby.[10] [11] After Levy's departure, dealer Sukanya Rajaratnam was promoted to a partner at the again-renamed Mnuchin Gallery, remaining in the position until 2023.[12]
In 2019, Mnuchin set a new record for the highest amount paid for an artwork by a living artist when he bid $80 million ($91.1 million after fees) in a Christie’s auction for Rabbit, a 1986 stainless steel sculpture by Jeff Koons, on behalf of an anonymous client later revealed to be hedge fund manager Steve Cohen.[13] [14] [15]
Mnuchin's personal collection includes work by de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, and Mark Rothko.
Mnuchin's first wife was Elaine Terner Cooper.[16] They had two children. One son, Alan G. Mnuchin, was a vice president at Goldman Sachs in 1995, when he married Kimberly E. Kassel.[17] The second son, Steven Mnuchin, also became a banker with Goldman Sachs and Secretary of the Treasury under US President Donald Trump. In 1999 Cooper was a vice president of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum's international directors council, and a director of the Byrd Hoffman Foundation. She died on May 14, 2005.[18]
Mnuchin married his second wife Adriana in 1963. Adriana Mnuchin founded retail enterprises Tennis Lady and Cashmere-Cashmere. In 1995, she co-founded The Shakespeare Society (the first in the USA) and in 2009, Roundtable Cultural Seminars, an adult continuing education organization. Robert and Adriana Mnuchin have one child together: a daughter, Valerie Mnuchin.[19] Robert and Valerie Mnuchin opened a restaurant together in Shelter Island, New York in 2023.[20] His step-daughter, Lisa Abelow Hedley, was nominated for an Emmy award for documentary film, and is married to the writer of Flashdance, Tom Hedley, with whom she has four children.[21]
In 1990, Mnuchin and his wife Adriana bought the Mayflower Inn, a country house hotel in Washington, Connecticut,[22] which they turned into a Relais & Chateaux 30-room hotel, spa and restaurant, before selling it in 2007.[23] In 2011, they purchased a 5850square feet Upper East Side house at 14 East 95th Street from Solomon Asser for $14.25 million, using his company, Nuke Properties LLC.[24] Initially listed in 2014 at $17 million, it sold in January 2016 to Alastair and Alisa Wood for a reported $13 million.[25]
Mnuchin contributes to Democratic politicians in most election cycles and has declined to discuss his son's politics with reporters.