Sports

Mets’ savior Steve Cohen owns an absurd amount of expensive art

If Mets fans have Champagne wishes and caviar dreams, this is their guy.

Steve Cohen, the $13.6 billion hedge-funder set buy a majority share of the Amazin’s, is a free spender who has amassed a museum’s worth of jaw-dropping art while hobnobbing with the likes of Guy Fieri and A-Rod.

After conquering Wall Street and collecting luxury properties and $1 billion in artwork the way some people collect, well, baseball cards — Cohen is set to take his other lifelong passion to the big leagues.

The Sterling Partners — headed by current Mets majority owners Fred Wilpon and Saul Katz — announced to the elation of fans across the Big Apple on Wednesday that they were negotiating the sale to Cohen of a controlling interest in the club.

The third of seven children, Cohen, 63, grew up with the same preoccupations as any average kid in middle-class Great Neck, LI: escape and baseball.

Cohen’s father, who worked in the Garment District, would bring home a copy of The Post every evening, which Cohen would read religiously, paying special attention to the sports pages, according to a 2014 piece in The New Yorker.

He was drawn in by the stats of the box scores, before his fascination with numbers brought him over to the business pages.

The difference between Cohen and any average kid in Great Neck? He had the mind and the drive to will his middle-class dreams into reality.

Cohen attended the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business — whose alumni include President Trump and Elon Musk — and graduated in 1978 with a degree in economics.

He parlayed that into a gig at New York’s now-defunct Gruntal & Co. brokerage firm — where he turned in an $8,000 profit on his first day, according to a second New Yorker profile.

Steve Cohen is seen in front of a Lorenzo Quinn sculpture titled 'Give from the Heart.'
Steve Cohen is seen in front of a Lorenzo Quinn sculpture titled ‘Give from the Heart.’Halcyon Gallery

“I knew he was going to be famous within a week,” his boss at the firm told the magazine. “I never saw talent like that.”

But it’s doubtful that any of Cohen’s early co-workers could conceive of the lofty points to which he would ascend, with the height and force of a Pete Alonso homer.

Forbes now estimates Cohen’s riches at $13.6 billion, a sum that many might not be able to spend in 10 lifetimes — but that hasn’t stopped Cohen, twice married and a father to seven, from trying.

He first poured his money into art, amassing a collection that would be the envy of many museums, with paintings by Pablo Picasso, Jasper Johns and Peter Doig among his trove, according to a Fortune profile that valued Cohen’s collection at $1 billion on its own.

“It’s mind-blowing what he’s put together,” Larry Gagosian, Cohen’s longtime art dealer and pal, told Fortune. “When you go to his home, you just see museum quality and beyond, incredible art you just don’t find in private homes.”

And the paintings are just what’s on the inside at Cohen’s opulent Greenwich, Conn., home and his brokerage offices in Stamford, New York and London.

Several sculptures, created by the such art stars as Jeff Koons, Richard Serra and Keith Haring, litter the grounds of the palatial Greenwich compound, dotting its reported 14 acres among a putting green and Zamboni-equipped, 6,700-square-foot skating rink.

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An untitled piece by late pop-up artist Keith Haring sits near a manicured row of hedges set off from the compound. The sculpture's blocky, silhouetted figures in solid colors is in the style of many of Haring's more famous works, such as "Three Dancing Figures."
An untitled piece by late pop-up artist Keith Haring sits near a manicured row of hedges set off from the compound. The sculpture's blocky, silhouetted figures in solid colors is in the style of many of Haring's more famous works, such as "Three Dancing Figures."Alamy Stock Photo
An untitled sculpture by San Francisco-born artist Richard Serra sits farther out from the heart of the mansion, along a road that runs through the wooded expanse.
An untitled sculpture by San Francisco-born artist Richard Serra sits farther out from the heart of the mansion, along a road that runs through the wooded expanse. Alamy Stock Photo
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"Balloon Dog Yellow," a whimsical, stainless-steel re-creation of a balloon animal crafted by Jeff Koons. When it's not on loan to museums, the towering canine calls the courtyard of the compound home. A similar piece by Koons rendered in orange sold for $58.4M at auction in 2013, according to Fortune.
"Balloon Dog Yellow," a whimsical, stainless-steel re-creation of a balloon animal crafted by Jeff Koons. When it's not on loan to museums, the towering canine calls the courtyard of the compound home. A similar piece by Koons rendered in orange sold for $58.4M at auction in 2013, according to Fortune.Alamy Stock Photo
"Sacred Heart," another steel Koons piece mere feet from "Balloon Dog Yellow." The candy-apple red heart is cinched up tight at the top with a golden ribbon, reminiscent of a Valentine's Day balloon.
"Sacred Heart," another steel Koons piece mere feet from "Balloon Dog Yellow." The candy-apple red heart is cinched up tight at the top with a golden ribbon, reminiscent of a Valentine's Day balloon.Copyright Jeff Koons
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Among the more bizarre pieces in Cohen’s collection is Marc Quinn’s “Self,” a frozen self-portrait sculpture made of Quinn’s own blood.

Then there’s “The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living” — or, as most casual observers would know it, the shark piece.

The 1991 work by British artist Damien Hirst, which consists of the corpse of a 14-foot tiger shark preserved in a formaldehyde solution in a steel-and-glass case, was bought by Cohen in 2004 for $8 million.

When the corpse began to deteriorate, Cohen paid Hirst more than $100,000 to refurbish it.

Expanding his interests beyond art, Cohen once paid a similar amount to Food Network regular Guy Fieri to accompany him on a single day of eating their way through Connecticut in a sort of one-on-one episode of Fieri’s show, “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives,” according to Allen Salkin’s book “From Scratch: Inside the Food Network.”

Steve Cohen is friends with TV chef Guy Fieri.
Steve Cohen is friends with TV chef Guy Fieri.YouTube

A rep for Cohen denied that claim in 2013, saying only that the pair know each other.

Cohen’s billions have brought him other famous friends, including one that he might not want to host in Citi Field anytime soon.

Cohen and former Yankee star third baseman Alex Rodriguez have been spotted sharing dinner on the town numerous times in recent years.

But for all the glitz that’s come to Cohen — who already owns a 4 percent minority stake in the Mets — there remain concerns over how he acquired it.

Allegations of insider-trading have long been flung in Cohen’s direction, although they have failed to stick to him directly.

Then-Manhattan US Attorney Preet Bharara’s yearslong investigation into Cohen’s now-defunct SAC Capital reportedly inspired the Showtime series “Billions,” with Damian Lewis’ Bobby Axelrod character based on Cohen.

Rye Country Day School Support from the Steven & Alexandra Cohen Foundation to build The Cohen Center for the Creative Arts will enable generations of RCDS students to create, collaborate, and innovate.
Rye Country Day School Support from the Steven & Alexandra Cohen Foundation to build The Cohen Center for the Creative Arts will enable generations of RCDS students to create, collaborate, and innovate.

Bharara’s hunt ended with the insider-trading convictions of eight SAC traders and analysts — some of which were overturned on appeal — but no charges for Cohen.

But he was dinged with $1.8 billion in fines and banned in 2016 by the Securities and Exchange Commission from managing hedge funds for two years.

Cohen — who did not return calls from The Post on Thursday — returned to the high-finance arena with the founding of the Point72 hedge-fund and began managing money the very day his ban was lifted.

But Mets fans starved for a winner — or at least a mover-and-shaker on the free-agent market, unlike the tight-fisted Wilpons — may be willing to focus on Cohen’s results rather than his method, assuming the sale is approved.

In order to become a majority owner, Cohen would require the approval of at least 75 percent of MLB’s 30 team owners.

One hedge-fund manager who knows Cohen both professionally and personally said that Mets fans should be excited and that front-office figures who for years have operated without Cohen’s competitive fury should watch out.

“The only people who should fear this getting done are the people in the Mets front office,” said the insider, who asked not to be identified by name. “That’s going to be a very different reality when he takes over.”