Let Them Eat Cake

On Thursday, close friends of art collectors Don and Mera Rubell gathered at Casa Tua in Miami Beach to clink Veuve Clicquot and toast the couple’s 50th anniversary, and their 50 years of collecting art. W’s Editor-in-Chief Stefano Tonchi kicked off the Bulgari-sponsored brunch, toasting the Rubells, before Mera delved into the story of how she met Don when she was studying psychology at Brooklyn College and he had graduated from Cornell. When it was time for dessert, individual Keith Haring-themed cakes (in honor of the couple’s early purchases from the artist) were presented to each guest, along with a candle and a set of matches, before Mr. Tonchi asked each guest to light a candle in their honor. “Miami was in a different place when they arrived. They came with an extraordinary imagination and vision. It was their ability to see things that other people couldn’t that made them so special,” explained the artist Mark Handforth, a close friend of the Rubells. “They introduced a set of artists who had extraordinary and performative work—they were responsible for introducing a whole new generation of artists” he continued, explaining the Rubell family’s profound influence on the Miami cultural landscape. The lunch concluded in a rose champagne toast, underneath trees decorated with suspended Japanese lanterns.

Mera and Don Rubell, the subjects of W’s December 2014/January 2015 story “Family Affair,” also received a custom card from gallerist Helene Winer of Metro Pictures, inspired by their family portrait by Rineke Dijkstra that accompanied the story.[/caption]