It’s not a photograph, unfortunately (or, we guess, fortunately), but a painting, conceived of and commissioned by London-based hedge-funder Scott Walters and brought to exquisite life by portraitist Nathan James. Walters explained the heavy symbolism within to Business Insider thusly:
“He is meant to look like a confused old man, unsure of where he is going, riding the bull market (the bull) all wrong,” he says. “He is looking over his shoulder, not into the past but into the future..ie. he is clueless of how it should be done.” The flying pigs represent hedge funds, “capitalist pigs,” that are meant to “remind you of the inherent greed in our business…They are flying because they were able to navigate the markets in tumultuous times, unabated, and stuffed with cash regardless of the insanity Greenspan helped create.” The bear, sitting openly and rather plumply in the grass nearby, “signifies that he can’t see it coming.”
And the chaps?
“I used to work horses on a family cattle ranch in Utah, trust me, you need heavy chaps … so I threw them on him for realism and a nod to my childhood.”
Realism.
The Most Amazing Alan Greenspan Painting You’re Ever Going To See Is Owned By A Hedge Funder [Business Insider]
Related: People Who Bought Alan Greenspan Portraits Now Wish Him Dead
