New problems are on the horizon for Louise Blouin, the so-called Red Queen, now that Vanity Fair’s Michael Shnayerson is said to be investigating the high-profile CEO and her troubled art-publishing world.
“She streaked through the art world with radiance and money, but there are an awful lot of people all over the world who profess they have not been paid by her,” said Shnayerson.
Blouin, who still makes lists as one of the richest woman in the UK and values her wealth at more than $600 million, runs a glossy media company that publishes Art + Auction and Modern Painters magazines as well as Blouinartinfo.com.
She picked up her nickname because of her penchant for fashionable red blazers as well as for her staff firings that were reminiscent of one of the queens in the book “Alice in Wonderland” famous for uttering the phrase, “Off with their heads.”
When she is not in New York tending to her publishing empire, she runs the Louise Blouin Foundation out of London’s West End in a building that reportedly cost her $26 million to construct.
Blouin also boasts an estate — dubbed La Dune — on Gin Lane in the Hamptons, as well as a duplex in a Richard Meier-designed building on Charles Street in SoHo.
Insiders said she was using staffers in a so-far unsuccessful bid to sell the Charles Street pad last year.
A past dispute with a high-end printer for $198,000 in unpaid bills was settled in November with Louise Blouin Media agreeing to timely payments totaling $150,000 spread over the course of the year.
There are also at least four breach-of-contract suits filed in New York State Supreme Court seeking to recover more than $300,000 in unpaid compensation by former execs.
Blouin did not return calls or texts seeking comment.