Don't Blame Greed For The Financial Crisis!

It’s the Leverage Stupid!

• March 23 (Bloomberg) -- Economist Horace Wood Brock spends his days advising money managers and his spare time rummaging around 18th- and 19th-century Europe.
  
  Brock, called Woody by friends, has loaned a portion of his collection of French and English furniture, decorative objects and Old Master drawings to Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts for an exhibition on view through May 17.
  
  The 63-year-old Brock, president of Strategic Economic Decisions, an advisory service that he started in 1985 for hedge and pension funds, endowments and other investment groups, blames the current economic crisis on the lack of regulation, not on excessive executive pay.
  
  “Where was the government?” Brock, dressed in khakis, loafers and gold-rimmed eyeglasses, asked in a recent interview at his Park Avenue apartment in Manhattan. “Where were the overseers?
  
  ‘‘We are blaming greed and incompetence,’’ he said. ‘‘Those things can’t be changed. They are human nature. It’s the leverage, stupid. That’s my mantra.”
  
  The exhibition includes 160 items, such as a rare Louis XIV 17th-century French tortoiseshell clock by Andre-Charles Boulle, an exuberant swirling Louis XV 18th-century gilt console table and a muscular anatomical study by Peter Paul Rubens.
  
  “People, whether or not they are great lovers of Old Master drawings or antique furniture, can come and be wowed by this astonishing assemblage,” said George T.M. Shackelford, the museum’s chair of European art. “If you’re turned off by gold, you might not want to come.”
  
  Stodgy Taste
  
  Brock said he doesn’t care if his taste is considered stodgy among contemporary-art collectors.
  
  “If you want to be hip, you buy a Warhol,” he said as he paced around his apartment. A blue Childe Hassam seascape hung above a wooden cabinet. “I am the least hip guy.”
  
  Brock’s consistency is paying off. Last week at the European Fine Art Fair -- the world’s biggest art and antiques show known as Tefaf -- in the Dutch city of Maastricht, collectors favored Old Masters over some modern works, dealers said. Prices for Old Masters have held steady, defying the bad economy.
  
  His collection is usually installed in the Manhattan apartment and a home in coastal Massachusetts. Some French furniture is on long-term loan to the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles.
  
  Brock says he wasn’t motivated to buy for status.
  
  “I march to my inner drummer,” he said.
  
  Math Theory
  
  In the 1980s he devised a mathematical theory to explain the fuzzy field of aesthetics. His theory shows the balance between order and disorder, which creates beauty in three dimensional objects.
  
  The Boston museum reproduces Brock’s theorem in the show’s catalog. The graph’s axes measure the theme of a piece and the transformation of this theme.
  
  “He’s not trying to trumpet the quality of his collection,” curator Shakleford said. “He’s trying to give people a framework for understanding, in his opinion, why we find things visually appealing.”
  
  Brock has donated 20 objects to the museum, six of which are included in the show. A gallery of English Regency furniture and decorative objects will be named after him as part of the museum’s continuing construction project.
  
  He considers his collection money well spent.
  
  “The dividends in terms of beauty is constant and increasing, if you own the best,” Brock said. “Unlike other assets.”
  
  “Splendor and Elegance: European Decorative Arts and Drawings from the Horace Wood Brock Collection” is at the Museum of Fine Arts, 465 Huntington Ave., Boston. Information: +1-617-267-9300; http://www.mfa.org.