A broken marriage, a big inheritance and the murder of an art kingmaker

livemint.com:

THE LEGENDARY New York art dealer Brent Sikkema was tangled up in an ugly divorce when he got on a plane to Rio de Janeiro before Christmas last year, looking for a fresh start. With its beaches and bossa nova, Rio offered an escape, a rollicking hot spot where the 75-year-old hoped to unwind and have some fun. Brent had long held sway over a cerebral corner of the New York art scene, promoting women and diverse artists in the early 1990s when few galleries or museums exhibited either.

While some of his peers planted mega-gallery franchises the world over, Brent anchored his Sikkema Jenkins & Co. at a single spot in SoHo, then Chelsea, where he and his gallery partners cultivated artists including Kara Walker, Mark Bradford and Jeffrey Gibson. Privately, friends gravitated toward his wicked sense of humor, a zest that extended to an ebullient social life, often populated by a revolving door of lovers.

“He liked younger men," says his friend, the artist Vik Muniz. Now, landing in Rio, Brent was trying to move past a personal low point. Despite his outward success, close friends say he had been emotionally drained after nearly two years of hashing out a divorce settlement with his estranged husband, with whom he had a 13-year-old son.

In Rio, he could spend a few weeks relaxing, maybe walk along Copacabana beach to meet locals or meditate. Brent spent Christmas Day at the home of Muniz’s parents, who lived a few doors down from his own two-story vacation home near Rio’s lush botanical garden. Muniz was pleased to find Brent sanguine, regaling the group with his plans to spend more time in Brazil.