In 2000, he founded the Helly Nahmad Gallery in Manhattan, New York,[2] which holds several fine art exhibitions each year featuring artists such as Pablo Picasso,[1] Chaïm Soutine,[3] Francis Bacon,[4] and Giorgio de Chirico.
[11] Nahmad spent his childhood in Manhattan, New York[2] and at a young age would shadow his father to fine art galleries, auctions, and museums.
[2] Nahmad interned in the Jewish Museum in the summers and attended the private Dalton School in New York's Upper East Side.
[18] Described by Bloomberg as "an exhibition of modern and postwar artists including Joan Miró, Alexander Calder, Jean Dubuffet and Fernand Léger,"[19] it was open to the public and also featured works by Mark Rothko and Wayne Thiebaud.
[20][21] As part of the plea deal, he agreed to forfeit around $6.4 million and a Raoul Dufy painting, Carnaval à Nice,[9][19] to the United States,[20] with other charges such as money laundering, racketeering, and fraud[22] dropped by prosecutors.
[11][25] Stating to the New York Times that over the past year collectors had been investing more in "dead and late- and mid-career artists,"[11] Nahmad also selected works by Alexander Calder,[25] Claude Monet, Joan Miró, and Mark Rothko.
Blouin Artinfo wrote that the show was "an aesthetic move that matches de Chirico’s Neo-classical style, a later and less explored side of his work.
"[26] In 2011, Philippe Meastracci, the heir of art dealer Oscar Stettiner,[27] filed suit in United States district court[28] against the Helly Nahmad Gallery in New York[29] for title to the 1918 Modigliani painting Seated Man with a Cane,[28] which was estimated to have a value of $25 million.
[28] Maestracci claimed that the painting,[28] which had been sold in 1996 through Christie's[29] for $3.2 million,[27] had been looted from Stettiner in Paris[29] during World War II.
"[30] Nahmad resides in New York City, where he has owned property in Trump Tower in Manhattan,[2][9][19] with a complete floor purchased over a decade,[31][32] for over $18 million.