David Nahmad

David Nahmad (born 1947, in Beirut, Lebanon) is a fine art dealer and billionaire.^[1] A descendant of a Jewish Lebanese art family residing in Monaco and cousin of defunct Edmond Safra he and his relations are perhaps the single biggest buying force in fine art.^[1] As of 2013, David Nahmad and his family's net worth was estimated at $3 billion, ranking him with his family at 377 on the Forbes billionaires list.

Origin[edit]

The roots of the Nahmad family are in Aleppo, Syria, where Sephardic Jewish^[3] banker Hillel Nahmad lived until just after the second world war. Following anti-Jewish violence in 1947, Hillel Nahmad moved to Beirut, Lebanon and when the situation there became difficult, Hillel took his three sons, Joseph (Giuseppe), Ezra and David, to Milan in the early 1960s. As teenagers in the 1960s, they began to deal in art. Ezra and David skip school to trade on the Italian stock market. At a Juan Gris exhibition in Rome organised by cubist dealer Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, Ezra and David bought two works – the only pieces sold. Kahnweiler befriended them, selling them works by Picasso, Braque, Gris.^[4] With the emergence of the Red Brigades terror group in the 1970s, Milan was perceived as too dangerous, and the family moved again. Joseph and Ezra headed for Monaco, and David to New York.

Helly Nahmad Gallery, on Madison Avenue, is a company run by David’s son Hillel "Helly" Nahmad, who took over his father’s earlier Davlyn Gallery in 2000.

Jeffrey Deitch, a former dealer and current director of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, once described the Nahmads as "like a major brokerage firm in the stock market", adding: "The market needs a force like this to function."^[3]

David Nahmad is also the 1996 Backgammon World Champion,^[5] and is known for betting incredibly large amounts of money on the game.