the bank's chairman and chief
are has been his signature since the late ’70s. Two assistants wheeled them around the Gucci duffle bagroom one at a time—they weighed enough to require two sets of hands—so they would catch different swaths of the fading light, while Mr. Schnabel directed me where to stand. I was looking at Peter Brant Jr. From farther back and at an angle, it was possible to see the edge of each broken plate and only a suggestion of a visage therein.made a loss in the third quarter of 2013 after legal expenses of $9.2bn (£5.8bn) caused by a wave of regulatory investigations and potential lawsuits. The bank, thought until recently to have weathered the financial crisis well, has put aside $23bn for potential litigation since 2010
and admitted yesterday its legal bills could be $6.8bn more. Jamie Dimon, the bank's chairman and chief executive, described the loss – his first since taking charge in December 2005 and the first since 2004 – as painful. The third-quarter loss is a Gucci bohodramatic reversal for a bank that has survived the five years since the financial crisis without falling into the red and even reported record profits for the last three years. During the crisis, JP Morgan was regarded as strong enough to rescue fallen banks Bear Stearns and Washington Mutual. Dimon, who ignored calls to split his management roles earlier this year, said: "We are just trying to improve and move on. Remember these things are related to multiple year events. Re “See how it looks if you stand there,” said Mr. Schnabel. He gestured for the assistants to turn the painting so that it faced me. “Now step forward. You see?” Peter Brant Jr. came into focus, pouting the way socialites do in photographs.
We spent 20 minutes doing this with each of the Brant children, and then with a separate portrait in the corner of the room of a topless blonde wearing a sailor’s cap. (“That’s my girlfriend, May,” Mr. Schnabel said, adding with no small Gucci messageamount of pride, “She’s upstairs.”) We went downstairs and pulled two chairs in front of The Patients and the Doctors, Mr. Schnabel’s first plate painting from 1978. “So it’s interesting,” Mr. Schnabel said. “You’ve never seen it in the flesh before?” For at least a decade in New York, there have been few opportuniti