In a 2008 interview with the BBC and Johnathan Ross, Jay said that a line from American Gangster inspired Damien Hirst to create a painting called Beat Life and Cheat Death that he would later purchase. Considering that is an insurance price-and works as famous as this one almost always sell at auction for more than they are estimated-we’re going up to $1 billion here. Adjusting for inflation across those 51 years, that figure would be around $775 million. According to the Guinneus Book of World Records, this is the most any work of art has been insured for. In 1962, when the painting was set to embark on a world tour, it was insured for $100 million. There is no way that Jay Z owns the Mona Lisa, as he implies in "Picasso Baby." But, for the sake of our imaginary estimate, we’re going believe that Jay is actually “sleeping every night next to Mona Lisa.” Mona Lisa has not been sold since it was purchased by King Francis in 1516, for about $100,000. With Simmons' newfound recognition, we'll give Jay a healthy $25,000 on this one. The work the Carter family ended up with, Lying Perfume Bottle, sold at public auction in 2006 for $22,800. The artist-who you might know as the mother of Lena Dunham-sells work for between $1,700 and $96,000 at auction. She came home with a more feminine image, a perfume bottle with legs. But Beyonce wasn’t having the implied violence and returned the piece. Jay initially chose the image above, a gun with women’s legs.
In 2010, Jay and Beyonce had a little tiff about which Laurie Simmons photograph should hang in their apartment.
Carter tweeted that he doesn't actually own one, so well give him the imaginary middle ground benefit of the doubt: $50 million. On the lower end, Picassos can go for around $20 or $40 million, while his etchings or drawings can go for far less at around $10,000 at auction. The most expensive Picasso, "Le Reve," sold for $155 million in March. As we mentioned, he shows up first in 1996 on "Friend or Foe" and continues to appear later in Jay's career: in Rick Ross’s 2008 “Maybach Music,” on a feature for Robin Thicke’s 2009 “Meiple,” in the 2011 cut “Who Gon Stop Me,” and of course, the song that some say killed performance art, “Picasso Baby.” The best-known Picassos are already in the hands of established galleries, museums, and patrons, so let’s assume Jay owns a smaller, lesser-known painting. It’s probably the cadence and rhyme of Picasso’s name that make him one of Jay Z’s most-rapped artists.
But then again, why would Jay want a litho? Of course he'd pick up an original print-we priced Hov's mystery piece somewhere in the $30,000 range. In 2013’s “Oceans,” Jay raps a reference to the street artist behind Barack Obama's official 2008 campaign poster: "Shepard Fairey, they finally gave me some hope.” Fairey’s original work sells for close to $100,000, and his lithographs go for around $6,000 each. Check out the final results of Estimating the Net Worth of Jay Z's Art Collection. Lastly, we also include estimations for works we’re not positive Jay owns, based on some of his raps, and provide totals for both an imagined, lyrical collection and a real, material collection. First, we decided that the more often Jay references an artist, it increases the likelihood he owns a piece, protecting his investment by name checking the artist. Second, it’s not always clear exactly which piece by any given artist Jay owns, so we used the average price the artist's work fetches at auction.
Our guess to how much the rapper has spent on art takes in a number of factors. We decided to calculate the value of Jay Z's growing art collection to our best estimation. And he's clearly visited an institution or two, going simply from “house is like a museum” in 2011’s “Illest Motherfucker Alive” to discerning between The Louvre and the Tate Modern on this year’s "Picasso Baby," where he danced with performance art titan Marina Abramovic. Between 2008, when he told the BBC he's "into art now," 2009, the first year he bragged about his art collection on “Off That,” and today, Jay has developed a taste for the finer things, with the help of his art advisor Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn. Jay has conspicuously diversified his tastes and expanded his knowledge of the arts. Since then, he consistently ramped up his association with the fine arts by not only name dropping artists but also buying pricey artworks. On the track it was less about ownership and more about gunplay, but at the least it shows Jay's focus on the art world. Since Jay Z first dropped a Picasso reference back in 1996 on "Friend or Foe," it was clear how much he loves visual arts.
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