An epic battle has broken out over the $100 million-plus estate of Melva Bucksbaum, one of America’s most celebrated art collectors and a vice chair of the board of trustees of the Whitney Museum, who died at 82 last year.
Her husband of 15 years, Raymond Learsy, a trader, developer and fellow Whitney board member, has asserted his right to challenge her will, which left him $10 million and a $30 million home. She also gave him gifts worth $14 million during their marriage.
Learsy claims he’s entitled to half of her fortune, which includes a Tribeca loft, homes in Sharon, Conn., and Aspen, Colo., and an astonishing art collection that includes works by Matisse, David Salle, Richard Serra, Robert Mapplethorpe, Frank Gehry, Terry Winters and Nan Goldin.
Bucksbaum and Learsy married in 2001, after she and her family started the Bucksbaum Award, which every two years grants an artist $100,000, the largest cash award to an individual visual artist.
Learsy, 80, is embroiled in the fight over the estate with Bucksbaum’s two sons, Gene and Glenn Bucksbaum, and her daughter, Mary Bucksbaum Scanlan, who is the trustee of her mother’s estate.
Page Six has exclusively learned that Learsy — once giddily described by the New York Times as having “the elegant bearing of a professor, with a snowy beard and impish grin” — has filed a notice in an Aspen court that he intends to challenge Melva’s will and claim half of her fortune, which came from her first marriage, to Iowa shopping-mall-empire builder Martin Bucksbaum. It is believed the art collection alone could be worth $100 million and her total estate could be as much as double that figure.
Bucksbaum’s children have hired New York power lawyer William D. Zabel, who told Page Six, “This is a clear case of greed by a colossal cad.” Bucksbaum’s daughter Mary added, “My sole purpose is to carry out my mother’s wishes to protect her family.” Learsy’s attorney, Hugh J. Freund, didn’t return calls or emails.