$ 95 MILLION DOLLARS FOR THIS ?!

First, let me jam an icepick into my eye - AGHAAA!!, ok, better ... now to the story

NEW YORK (Reuters)- Picasso's 1941 portrait of his mistress, "Dora Maar with cat," sold for an astounding $95 million at Sotheby's on Wednesday, becoming the second most expensive painting in auction history. The vibrant, large-scale work depicts Maar, the surrealist photographer Picasso was romantically involved with for a decade, seated in a chair with a small cat perched on the back. It had been expected to sell for upwards of $40 million, but the winning bid of $95,216,000, including commission, caught even Sotheby's officials by surprise. "I was hoping for 70-plus," said David Norman, Sotheby's co-chair of Impressionist and modern art, after the sale. "We thought it was worth more, and we were right." Even Tobias Meyer, the usually unflappable auctioneer, admitted he was surprised when the bidding passed $65 million. "The energy in the room was incredible," he said. "There's just a very clear, strong demand for the kind of intense painting with an emotional pull that the Picasso represents; things that are made for our times,"
Given a less-than robust economy, Norman said he was "surprised, thrilled and grateful," at the sale's result "but I wasn't expecting a poor sale. We knew there's a tremendous pool of money out there," he said. The auction of Impressionist and modern art brought in a total of $207,564,800, it's third highest sales figure ever, Sotheby's said.

Didn't Picasso once drew a painting called "tasteless doodles"? .... point is - I understand 5 - 10 mill., but $ 95,000,000 - unless it's a money laundering operation someone has way too much money and time on their hands - c'mon, especially if it was a liberal who bought it - don't you people have starving people in Africa to feed? One can buy a mansion (scrap that), a castle in the south of France, and more Ferraris and Lamborginis than color variations in this ugly painting ... I just don't understand people who spend that kind of money on a piece of canvas.