THE most flamboyant art collector in South America is a bouncing, bantam Brazilian with the resounding name of Francisco de Assis Chateaubriand Bandeira de Mello. What "Chato" collects goes on display in a public museum in Sao Paulo (pop. 3,300,000), and in just eleven years he has made it the hemisphere's finest outside the U.S. Chato pays for much of the art himself, and gets the rest by a grandiose form of flattery. As publisher of 32 newspapers and five magazines, and as owner of 24 radio and three TV stations, he can elaborately praise any rich Brazilian who donates good...
To continue reading:
or
Log-In
