[2] Their father, Izador Ashkenazy, was an art collector who owned paintings by Matisse, Monet, Gauguin, Picasso, and Manet.
[4] He then attended graduate school at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) for four years, but did not complete his degree.
[2] Meanwhile, his brother Arnold Ashkenazy purchased paintings by "Vincent van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, Raoul Dufy, Maurice de Vlaminck, Stanton Macdonald-Wright, John Altoon, Saul Steinberg, and California impressionist William Wendt, and lithographs by Joan Miró, Marc Chagall and Alexander Calder.
Whilst a UCLA student in 1960, Ashkenazy was involved with a Mexican American woman and left before the baby was born.
He finally met his father when he was in his 20s, and worked for him for six years, before starting Pueblo Contracting and Aszkenazy Development in San Fernando.