During the last year, Charles Saatchi has again become a barometer of which artists to buy, just like he was in the '80s. The current upturn is perfectly predictable. For the past 50 years, the art market has run in a seven to nine year cycle. A new buzz among art professionals involves lending against art. What they're looking for is expertise in this area.
Bankers see art collections and see money sitting in pictures and think it's just dead capital.
Then there's money to sink into some other investment, possibly including more art. Turumaki was one of those late '80s collectors who had too much of other people's money to throw around. Aside from buying the Magritte and the Picasso, he sank hundreds of millions into a car racetrack, the Nippon Autopolis. Then, after the collapse of the market, it wound up as the property the Lake Finance Company, a Tokyo lending institution that had provided Tsurumaki with so much of his borrowed millions. Lake floated it on the market in the mid-'90s, hoping to recoup some of its art debt.