Picture of Wealth, If a Little Sub-prime

In a tree-lined courtyard behind Goldman Sachs' gleaming headquarters in New York, a slightly scruffy, mildly eccentric artist has been holding court all week.

Geoffrey Raymond, a 54-year-old Brooklyn man, styles himself as Wall Street's unofficial portrait painter. His latest work is a picture of the Goldman boss Lloyd Blankfein entitled "Big Lloyd 2: now more than ever!"

The work awards Blankfein a cheerful grin and there's something warmly avuncular about the crinkles around his eyes. A follow-up to an earlier picture (Big Lloyd 1), it is inspired by Goldman's unique success in making billions out of last year's sub-prime mortgage crisis – and it celebrates Blankfein's personal pay package of $68.5m (£34.5m).

Painted in a style described by Raymond as a cross between Jackson Pollock and Chuck Close, the work has sparked amusement and curiosity among financial workers munching their lunchtime sandwiches.

It has won perhaps the ultimate endorsement – in response to an emailed question about Blankfein's opinion of the painting, a Goldman Sachs spokesman told me: "He rather likes it."

Raymond, a former financial PR man who spent years servicing Fortune 500 companies, chucked in his job a few years back to pursue his artistic passion. "I started out painting waitresses near my apartment," he says. "But a friend of mine pointed out that waitresses don't have any money."

He decided there was a niche in depicting Wall Street's finest – with varying degrees of affection.

Raymond's take on the former New York Stock Exchange boss Dick Grasso is definitely not complimentary. Grasso, renowned for his $190m compensation package, looks like a baggy-eyed frog.

A portrait of Rupert Murdoch is a bit more sympathetic, although Raymond encouraged Dow Jones employees to scrawl their thoughts on their new boss in the background â€" not all of which are, shall we say, palatable.

Then there's a tribute to the CNBC anchor Maria Bartiromo, known as the "money honey", who is ironically depicted as the Virgin Mary.

Raymond, who seeks four-figure sums for his pictures on eBay, is careful not to be too satirical. He maintains that his smiling Blankfein is intended to be a friendly gesture: "Everybody else got screwed by the sub-prime thing. Goldman Sachs is sitting there like the goose that laid the golden egg."

This sympathetic view of Goldman's 2007 profits of $11.6bn is not universally shared. The bank faces increasingly outspoken attacks from community groups for its conduct in helping to package dodgy sub-prime loans – while at the same time taking a massive hedging position to bet that the market for the very same loans would fall through the floor.

The National Training and Information Centre, a resource provider for grassroots organisations fighting home foreclosures, has urged Wall Street workers to donate part of their $38bn in bonuses to people in danger of losing their homes from the mortgage meltdown – it points out that as little as $2,500 can be enough to help a family restructure a mortgage.

Kevin Connor, the author of an investigative report for the centre on Wall Street's role, is scathing about Goldman's conduct, telling the Village Voice: "I liken it to selling poison and then betting people will get sick."

Goldman threw a Christmas party for its hard-working staff at BLVD, an 18,000 square foot downtown nightclub which boasts "decadent" private rooms for the "ultimate experience" in socialising. A full-throated posse gathered outside to serenade the arriving bankers with suitably doctored Christmas carols.

To the tune of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, the protesters recounted:

"Goldman the two-faced i-bank

Gave out very shoddy loans

And if you ever saw them

You'd wonder how its profits rose."

I am tempted to bring you more of this splendid ditty – but it gets rather more contentious and Goldman Sachs has sacks of cash to spend on lawyers.