“The Wolves of Wall Street I”
David Yarrow | Maddox Gallery
An homage to excess, featuring the signatures of two Hollywood legends, quickly banked $200,000 from an unnamed buyer this week.
The black-and-white “Wolves of Wall Street I,” by famed British photographer David Yarrow, sold at Art Miami within 10 minutes of the art fair’s opening. Yarrow was inspired by the 2013 film “The Wolf of Wall Street” and brought in the real Jordan Belfort, whose memoir the movie is based on, to feature in the photo.
And that’s not all: The photo also bears the signatures of director Martin Scorsese and actor Leonardo DiCaprio.
“The Wolf of Wall Street project was an ambitious and important one for me as Martin Scorsese is one of my heroes,” Yarrow said in a blog post on Nov. 1.
The Maddox Gallery, which sold the photo, said $160,000 of its proceeds will be donated to a conservation charity. Yarrow said that this “frenzied dealing room” scene, as well as ”a recreation of The Lion King in East Africa and South Africa … cost a combined £200,000″ to make, or about $260,000.
Yarrow took the Belfort shot at an abandoned office in Simi Valley, California and says it took about 3 hours to create – especially because of the live wolf that is front and center. But it was all worth it in the end to Yarrow.
“The lead image that we came home with from that Sunday was far better than I could have imagined,” Yarrow said.
Belfort tweeted the photo last month, calling Yarrow “extremely talented.”
What’s more, Yarrow said that DiCaprio told him “the image captured the ‘very essence of Jordan Belfort.'”
“It was a career highlight to get that kind of affirmation from the greatest actor of my generation,” Yarrow added.
The New York Post first reported the photograph’s sale.