With fires hitting California, the United States faces ‘one of the biggest losses of works of art’

Los Angeles, a city where the artistic world and great fortunes meet, is a place with a great concentration of works of art. But many paintings, sculptures and various works, preserved in private collections and exhibited in the homes of wealthy Los Angeles owners, were reduced to ashes. “This is going to be considerable and perhaps one of the largest losses ever recorded in the United States“, confides Simon de Burgh Codrington, fine arts insurance specialist and managing director of Risk Strategies, to ARTnews. “There is no doubt that insurance companies are bracing for massive artwork claims, but the implications for the broader arts ecosystem are unprecedented“, adds Grace Aretsky, head of business development at HUB International