Black's $119.9M Art Buy Paid $119.9 Million for Edvard Munch's The Scream
Financier Leon Black was identified as the buyer of an Edvard Munch pastel of The Scream that sold at Sotheby's on May 2, 2012 for $119.9 million.
By the Rich vs Reality desk May 2012 10 sources

Could have saved
21,800
lives.
Financier Leon Black was identified as the buyer of an Edvard Munch pastel of The Scream that sold at Sotheby's on May 2, 2012 for $119.9 million. The sale set an auction record at the time.
Reported by Los Angeles Times, July 2012 and Forbes, November 2022.
$119.9 million could have saved an estimated 21,800 lives through malaria prevention.
$119.9 million could have changed these lives
Instead, it went on this.
21,800
lives saved from malaria, most of them children under five
GiveWell estimates its top charities save a life for $3,000 to $5,500. We use the higher figure: $5,500, the cost through Against Malaria Foundation bed nets. Source
1.1 million
hungry kids fed three meals a day for a whole year
No Kid Hungry: $1 can help provide 10 meals for kids. Three meals a day for 365 days is 1,095 meals, about $110 per child per year. Source
6,719
years of rent for a homeless veteran
At the U.S. median rent of $1,487 a month (Census, 2024), about $17,844 a year. Source
Or: 3 million people given clean drinking water; 3,360 families escaping domestic violence given a safe home for two years. Every rate and source.
Leon Black
$119.9 million
For everyone else, that's
Could have saved 21,800 lives.
Drag the seam between the two worlds.
Measured against a typical American household: $87,460 a year, $192,900 net worth.
The receipts
- Los Angeles Times, July 2012
- Forbes, November 2022
- Net worth: No published estimate
- U.S. Census Bureau, Income in the United States: 2025 (Sept 2026)
- Federal Reserve, Survey of Consumer Finances 2022
- No Kid Hungry, What your dollars can do
- GiveWell, How much does it cost to save a life?
- charity: water, How much clean water will my donation provide
- U.S. DOJ Office on Violence Against Women, Transitional housing
- U.S. Census Bureau median gross rent, via USAFacts
See something wrong? Send a source to hello@richvsreality.com and we will correct it.
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