Today's world is ever more globalized and increasingly interconnected—and that means the emergence of a new kind of multi-millionaire and billionaire with currency to spare (see The Top 10 Uber-Rich Art Collectors). Beyond their tendency to snap up properties of every shade, from penthouses to boats to businesses, this generation of tycoons, celebrities, and philanthropists are more regularly turning to another time-tested form of ritual consumption with a range of cultural benefits: art collecting. Be they heirs to Middle Eastern fortunes or young pioneers in the tech industry (see Meet 20 of the World's Most Innovative Art Collectors), art collectors in the 21st century represent a demographic more widely varied than ever before.
To chronicle our times and these champions of the arts who hail from all corners of the planet and every possible background, artnet News has compiled the ultimate two-part list (see artnet News Top 200 Art Collectors Worldwide for 2015, Part One). Our roster of collectors features those who have been most active within the past 12 months and have shown a remarkable commitment to collecting.
We acknowledge that the lineup is heavily skewed toward male collectors based in the US, but beyond the usual suspects, we've done our best to cast a light on collectors you may not have yet heard about. We're impressed by the number of influential women who made the cut (see The 100 Most Powerful Women in Art: Part One) as well as the marked contingent of younger Chinese men and women including Richard Chang, David Chau and Kelly Ying, Adrian Cheng, and Lin Han.
Some collectors are profiled in depth, while others, our "Collectors to Watch"—including emerging connoisseurs, those who are operating under the radar, and those who were once very active even if they've been quieter in recent years—are incorporated by name only.
Organized alphabetically, the index is the culmination of a three-month process that began with a poll of experts in the industry—including dealers, art advisers, and other insiders—and involved the efforts of staff and freelance writer Emily Nathan.
We hope you find it useful!
Fatimah and Eskandar Maleki.
Photo: patrickmcmullan.com
Fatima and Eskandar Maleki (United Kingdom)
Iranian-born Fatima Maleki and her husband, former oil-company executive Eskandar, have served on the boards of the photography-oriented Prix Pictet and the Tate in London. Although their first acquisitions were largely Old Masters, they have turned their attention to contemporary art, and have purchased works by artists including Chris Ofili.
Marty Margulies.
Photo: oceandrive.com
Martin Margulies (United States)
Self-made millionaire real-estate developer and philanthropist Margulies is one of South Florida's best-known art collectors. He has been at it for some 30 years, and, along with other collecting families including the Rubells and the de la Cruzes as well as Ella Fontanals-Cisneros, he helped pioneer what became known as the “Miami model," in which private collectors opened their collections to the public and put the city on the art world's radar. His art holdings, valued in the hundreds of millions, are housed between his home and his non-profit institution, the Margulies Collection at the Warehouse. Located in the Wynwood district, the 45,000-square-foot space displays work ranging from the blue-chip—Dan Flavin, Jason Rhodes, Joan Miró, and Isamu Noguchi—to local artists like South Florida photographer Annette Bonnier.
Peter Marino.
Photo: patrickmcmullan.com
Peter Marino (United States)
Architect Peter Marino, much like J. Tomilson Hill III—for whom he designed apartments in both New York and Paris—favors surprising juxtapositions of era and genre in his own art collection, which includes nearly 40 Renaissance bronzes and hordes of Warhols, Hirsts and Mapplethorpes (not to mention so many Anselm Kiefers that the artist describes Marino's Aspen home as “The Anselm Kiefer Museum"). Known for his sartorial preference for metal and black leather, Marino lent a large swath of his art collection to the Bass Museum of Art in Miami for the show “One Way: Peter Marino," which opened this past year during Art Basel in Miami Beach (see Peter Marino Is Packing Knives and Skulls for Debut Show in Miami).
Donald Marron.
Photo: patrickmcmullan.com
Donald Marron (United States)
The CEO of Lightyear Capital and former president of MoMA's board of trustees, Marron has a private collection that includes works by Roy Lichtenstein, Willem de Kooning, Frank Stella, and Gerhard Richter. While he was with Paine Webber, he created a renowned corporate collection of postwar art, which included over 850 works by major American and European artists, and arranged for a donation of dozens of works from the collection to MoMA (where the atrium is named after him).
David Martínez Guzmán.
Photo: Courtesy of Inforosario.
David MartÍnez (United Kingdom and Mexico)
Mexican financier Martínez, who spent $42 million for a 12,000-square-foot duplex in the Time Warner Center in 2003, has amassed a private art collection that is rumored to include a $140-million work by Jackson Pollock, as well as numerous works by Damien Hirst and Mark Rothko.
Raymond McGuire
Photo: Stephen Lovekin
Raymond J. McGuire (United States)
Raymond J. McGuire is a Harvard Law graduate who serves as Citi's Global head of corporate and investment banking. He collects contemporary art including work by Romare Bearden and supported the recent Carrie Mae Weems retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum (see Critical Reduction: Carrie Mae Weems at the Guggenheim). McGuire serves on several boards, including those of the Studio Museum in Harlem, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Foundation for Art and Preservation in Embassies, as well as the International Center for Photography.
Rodney Miller
Photo: Nicholas Hunt/Patrick McMullan
Rodney M. Miller Sr. (United States)
When he's not hammering out deals in the conference room, Rodney M. Miller Sr., who is managing director of the mergers and acquisitions group at JPMorgan Chase, serves on the acquisitions committee on the board of trustees at New York's Studio Museum in Harlem. If he weren't in business, he told the Vault Career Library, his dream would be to be a full-time collector of modern and contemporary art. Even as a freelancer, he's built an impressive résumé. Works by historical practitioners like Beauford Delaney and Romare Bearden are displayed at his Upper East Side townhouse alongside examples from the provocative artists of today including Lyle Ashton Harris, Shinique Smith, Glenn Ligon, and Hank Willis Thomas. He credits Studio Museum director Thelma Golden with helping him to see “not only the beauty in the visual arts, but the important effect art has in chronicling our society and providing a more complete view of society."
Simon and Catriona Mordant.
Photo: Courtesy of Generosity Mag.
Simon and Catriona Mordant (Australia)
UK-born investment banker and passionate philanthropist Simon Mordant was raised in a family that had “no interest in the arts at all," so he took himself to the museums in London, where he grew up, and acquired his first work at 14. He has been tapped as the commissioner for Australia's pavilion at the 2015 Venice Biennale, he is a director of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, and he sits on international councils for the Tate, MoMA, and the New Museum in Manhattan, as well as on the Wharton (UPenn) executive board for Asia. He has been collecting with his wife Catriona since they married in 1988, and their Australia-strong collection includes works by Australian artists Shaun Gladwell, Rosalie Gascoigne, Tracey Moffatt, Lindy Lee, John Young, Jenny Watson, Dale Frank, and Janet Laurence, among others, as well as such international names as Tracey Emin, Yinka Shonibare, Yoko Ono (see 7 Facts that Will Change the Way You See Yoko Ono), Bill Viola, Wim Delvoye, Jeremy Deller, and Fiona Tan.
Arif Naqvi.
Photo: reuters.com
Arif Naqvi (United Kingdom)
Chief executive of the private equity firm the Abraaj Group, which is one of the founding partners of Art Dubai, Pakistani-born, Dubai-based Naqvi is inextricably linked to the art-collecting scene in that part of the world, according to the Financial Times. He created the Abraaj Capital Prize in 2008, largely as a way of supporting the production of work from the so-called MENASA region (Middle East, North Africa and South Asia), and commissioned artworks become part of the Abraaj Group's corporate collection. Naqvi is also an avid collector himself, and his home is a treasure trove of art from those regions; the majority of his personal collection is comprised of work by artists from his native Pakistan, including Sadequain Naqqash, Ustad Allah Bakhsh, Abdur Rahman Chughtai, Ismail Gulgee, Jamil Naqsh, and Shahzia Sikander. (Works by prominent Lebanese and Syrian artists are also included.)
Philip Niarchos.
Photo: Courtesy the Greek Reporter.
Philip Niarchos (Greece)
The eldest son of Greek shipping magnate Stavros Niarchos, Philip is the richest Greek in the world, according to Forbes's recent list of billionaires. (His fortune was estimated at $2.5 billion.) Dividing time between London and Paris, Niarchos has a collection that is estimated to be worth more than $1 billion; it includes van Gogh's Self Portrait With Bandaged Ear, valued at some $100 million, and an iconic Yo Picasso, which he purchased in 1989 for $47.9 million at Sotheby's.
Peter Norton.
Photo: patrickmcmullan.com
Peter Norton (United States)
Computer programmer and philanthropist Peter Norton has a vast collection of artworks that push the envelope between media and genres. Often political, challenging definitions of racial and sexual identity, his holdings include contributions by Doug Aitken, Mark Dion, Nicole Eisenman, Omer Fast, Tom Friedman, Anna Gaskell, Robert Gober, Christian Marclay, and many others.
*More Collectors To Watch:
Shi Jian
Elton John
Tomislav Kličko
Mo Koyfman
Henry and Marie-Josée Kravis
Jan Kulczyk
Svetlana Kuzmicheva-Uspenskaya
Pierre Lagrange
Eric and Liz Lefkofsky
Robert Lehrman
François Odermatt.
Photo: Courtesy of La Presse.
François Odermatt (Canada)
Splitting his time between Montreal and Miami with his partner, artist Isabelle Kowal, Odermatt is one of Montreal's biggest collectors of contemporary art. He is known for his preference for painting and sculpture rather than photography or new-media works, and for choosing works that are large, unwieldy, and otherwise difficult to take home. Odermatt recently purchased a Hannah Wilke drawing from London's Alison Jacques for $90,000, Untitled (Body Painting) by Korakrit Arunanondchai for $18,000, and a series of works by Sam Falls.
Bernardo de Mello Paz.
Photo: Courtesy of Brazil-US Biz.
Bernardo de Mello Paz (Brazil)
Mining tycoon Bernardo Paz is the force behind the Instituto Inhotim, a sprawling sculpture park that extends across 5,000 acres with 24 pavilions devoted to individual contemporary artists, all from Paz's personal collection. Installed on the grounds are Olafur Eliasson's Viewing Machine (a giant kaleidoscope), Doug Aitken's Sonic Pavilion (a glass dome rigged with microphones and speakers), and a gallery devoted to Doris Salcedo (see World's Savagery Conjured at Doris Salcedo's Compelling MCA Chicago Retrospective).
José Olympio and Andréa Pereira.
Photo: Courtesy of Sp-Arte.
José Olympio & Andréa Pereira (Brazil)
José Olympio is the CEO of Credit Suisse Group's Brazilian unit and a member of the boards of São Paulo's Pinacoteca do Estado, New York's MoMA, London's Tate Modern, and the Fondation Cartier in Paris. He and his wife Pereira started their collection in the 1970s with works by modernists like José Pancetti and Alfredo Volpi. Today, their collection features more than 1,000 works, including many examples by Brazilian artists whose careers they helped to launch: Beatriz Milhazes, Ernesto Neto, Adriana Varejão, and Luiz Zerbini. They are especially enthusiastic about new Brazilian painters like Marina Rheingantz and Patricia Leite, and their most recent purchases include pieces by Sandra Cinto, Lia Chaia, and Janaina Tschäpe.
Catherine Petitgas.
Photo: patrickmcmullan.com
Catherine Petitgas (United Kingdom)
Trustee of the Whitechapel Gallery and former director of Alma Gallery, French-born Petitgas studied at the Courtauld Institute of Art in London and is one of the world's most respected collectors of Latin American art. With her husband Franck, she has been involved for years with Tate's Latin American acquisition committee, she works as curator of the PINTA Art Fair, and she recently launched a book on Brazilian contemporary art together with the curator Kiki Mazzucchelli.
François Pinault.
Photo: Courtesy of Forbes.
François Pinault (France)
Self-made French tycoon Pinault, whose holdings include Gucci and Christie's and who converted his Haunch of Venison gallery space in London into Christie's private saleroom in 2013, is generally considered to be France's second-richest man. Works from the Pinault Collection, which includes the recently-purchased black marble sculpture of Zinedine Zidane entitled Coup de Tête (2012) by Algerian-born artist Adel Abdessemed, are exhibited at Pinault's private museums, the Palazzo Grassi and the Punta della Dogana in Venice (see Danh Vo Bring Tequila to Venice). Pinault is currently working on an artist-residence project in the city of Lens in northern France, which is slated to launch in the fall.
Victor Pinchuk.
Photo: Courtesy of Forbes.
Victor Pinchuk (Ukraine)
Ukraine's biggest collector and second richest man, steel magnate Victor Pinchuk has a multimillion-dollar collection of contemporary art, which includes statues by Antony Gormley and several works by Damien Hirst (Pinchuk's close friend), as well as works by Jeff Koons. Via his foundation, Pinchuk is funding and organizing the Ukrainian pavilion at the 56th Venice Biennale.
Alden Pinnell.
Photo: artandseek.net
Alden and Janelle Pinnell (United States)
Dallas-based Pinnell, a luxury skin-care-line tycoon, opened the Power Station with his wife, Janelle,
in 2011, as an experimental kunsthalle for largely noncommercial shows. In 2013, the space was intentionally flooded over three months, so that artists Tobias Madison, Emanuel Rossetti, and Stefan Tcherepnin could record a dripping-water soundscape. Meanwhile, the Pinnells' private collection continues to grow; they have recently added new works by Sam Pulitzer, Virginia Overton, Peter Wächtler, Seth Price, and Bjarne Melgaard.
Ron Pizzuti.
Photo: patrickmcmullan.com
Ron and Ann Pizzuti (United States)
Real-estate developer and founder of the Pizzuti Collection, a non-profit museum of contemporary art in Columbus, Ohio, Pizzutti and his wife Ann have been assembling their collection of some 2,000 works for over 40 years. Highlights from their earliest collecting include works by John Chamberlain, Carroll Dunham, David Hammons and Ai Weiwei, and they have recently amassed a stunning collection of contemporary Cuban artists, with works by Yoan Capote, Raúl Cordero and Douglas Peréz, among others.
Michael Platt.
Photo: bloomberg.com
Michael Platt (Switzerland)
Geneva-based British hedge-fund billionaire Platt, who started the London gallery All Visual Arts with Joe La Placa, is an avid art collector worth about $1.2 billion, according to Bloomberg's Billionaires Index. He is known to commission unique artistic designs from world-renowned artists rather than making his purchases at art fairs and galleries, and in a private showroom in London, he exhibits works from his vast personal collection, among them pieces by Polly Morgan, Reece Jones, and Turner Prize-winner Keith Tyson.
Patrizio Bertelli and Miuccia Prada
Photo: Bobby Yip
Miuccia Prada and Patrizio Bertelli (Italy)
The name Miuccia Prada, the granddaughter of the luxury brand's founder Mario, has practically become synonymous with the term iconoclast. The new Milan building of the eponymous Prada Fondazione, designed by OMA, is set to open on May 9 in celebration of its 20th anniversary and it is guaranteed to make a colorful splash in the art world and further cement Prada's status as a trailblazer (see Take a Look Inside Fondazione Prada). She, along with her husband and business partner Patrizio Bertelli, is known for having collected work by artists like Sarah Lucas, Damien Hirst, Jeff Koons, and Carsten Höller long before they were trendy (fun fact from a Hans Ulrich Obrist story in AnOther magazine: one of Höller's slides connects her office to a parking lot). In the past, the foundation has organized solo exhibitions of artists including Louise Bourgeois, Tom Sachs, and John Baldessari. However, the first show at the new venue will look at the way classical art was widely copied and reproduced i periods such as the Renaissance and in neoclassicist movements. Prada told the Financial Times in a recent interview: “It would have been too obvious to open with a contemporary show."
Howard and Cindy Rachofsky.
Photo: patrickmcmullan.com
Howard and Cindy Rachofsky (United States)
Manning a post at the top of Dallas art scene, former hedge-fund manager Howard Rachofsky and his wife Cindy keep their sprawling collection of works by Dan Finsel, Haroon Mirza, Cyprien Gaillard and Tom Burr, acquired since 2005, in their recently refurbished, Richard-Meier designed 1940s house. With his friend Vernon Faulconer, an oil entrepreneur (see artnet News Top 200 Art Collectors Worldwide, Part One), he also founded the Warehouse in 2012; its 16 galleries occupy 18,000 square feet of exhibition space for works drawn from both couples' private collections as well as works purchased jointly with the Dallas Museum of Art.
Mitchell and Emily Rales.
Photo: patrickmcmullan.com
Mitchell and Emily Rales (United States)
Mitchell and Emily Wei Rales, of the Maryland-based Glenstone Museum (which they founded in 2006) have assembled what is widely considered one of the world's best collections of modern, postwar and contemporary art, with masterworks by Alberto Giacometti, Willem de Kooning, Peter Fischli and David Weiss, and Jackson Pollock. Mr. Rales is a co-founder of a global science and technology company, and has spent more than $702 million on the works featured in the museum, whose 125-acre grounds feature an extensive sculpture park boasting pieces by Richard Serra and Ellsworth Kelly.
*More Collectors To Watch:
Dan Loeb
George Lucas
Ninah and Michael Lynne
Lewis Manilow
Marissa Mayer
David Mirvish
Lakshmi Mittal
Valeria Napoleone
John Paulson
Amy and John Phelan
Ellen and Michael Ringier.
Photo: Courtesy of Tillate.com
Ellen and Michael Ringier (Switzerland)
Founder and head of the Ringier publishing empire, which includes the German art magazine Monopol and art-book publisher JRP Ringier, Ringier and his wife Ellen have decorated their Zurich headquarters with more than 200 works from their personal collection. Since 1997, they have commissioned a contemporary artist to design the company's annual report every year—recently, the commissioned artist was Laura Owens.
David Roberts.
Photo: zaidan.ca
David Roberts (United Kingdom)
Millionaire property developer Roberts (founder of the charitable David Roberts Arts Foundation, DRAF) grew up in Port Glasgow, and has recently become one of the UK's biggest art collectors. His cache of more than 2,000 pieces includes works by Damien Hirst, Andy Warhol, Eduardo Paolozzi, Anish Kapoor and Anthony Caro.
Hilary and Wilbur L. Ross Jr.
Photo: patrickmcmullan.com
Hilary and Wilbur L. Ross Jr. (United States)
Private-equity billionaire Wilbur Ross and his wife Hilary have an art collection that is said to be worth in the range of $150 million, comprises some 200 works, and demonstrates a strong leaning toward Western surrealists. He reportedly owns 25 paintings by Magritte, which alone are said to account for $100 million. The Rosses have more recently become avid collectors of Chinese and Vietnamese art, snapping up works by Liu Guosong, Liu Bolin, and Li Chen.
Jennifer Rubell, Don Rubell, and Mera Rubell.
Photo via: The Miami Art Scene.
The Rubell Family (United States)
Donald and Mera Rubell began collecting in New York in the early 1960s. In 1993, they established the Rubell Family Collection in Miami in a 45,000-square-foot warehouse that was formerly a Drug Enforcement Agency facility for confiscated goods. They were early buyers of George Condo, Keith Haring, and Jean-Michel Basquiat, among many other superstars, and their hit-studded collection—considered one of the pioneers of the so-called “Miami model," whereby private collectors create a public institution to show their work—features 6,800 works by 831 artists (see Which Private Collections Have the Best Art at Art Basel in Miami Beach). Every year, they host thematic exhibitions and “off-the-wall" breakfasts timed to coincide with Art Basel Miami Beach, which they helped found, and this past year during the art fair, they celebrated their 50th year of marriage and collecting contemporary art.
Dmitry Rybolvelv.
Photo: Courtesy of AP Photo/Lionel Cironneau.
Dmitry Rybolovlev (Russia)
Owner of the Russian potash producer Urakali and the Monaco AS Football Club, Rybolovlev is ranked by Forbes as the 13th richest man in Russia, with a fortune of of $9.1 billion and a vast collection of art. He is currently considered one victim of fraud perpetrated by Swiss businessman Yves Bouvier, who is suspected of having sold dozens of works by Picasso, Gauguin, Degas, Modigliani, and Leonardo da Vinci to the Rybolovlev family at inflated prices or with false documents (see Steve Cohen's Modigliani and $75 Million Leonardo at Heart of Yves Bouvier Case).
Lily Safra.
Photo: Courtesy of Paul Bruinooge/ Patrick McMullan.
Lily Safra (Brazil)
Born in Brazil and based in London, Safra is the widow of the Lebanese banker Edmond J. Safra, who died in a fire in his Monaco apartment in 1999. According to Bloomberg, she is one of the world's richest women. In 2010, she bought L'Homme qui marche I, a life-size sculpture of a man by Alberto Giacometti, for $104.3 million, which remains the highest amount ever paid for a sculpture at auction.
Tony Salamé.
Photo: Courtesy of David X. Prutting/ Patrick McMullan.
Tony Salamé (Lebanon)
In 1999, Lebanese fashion entrepreneur Tony Salamé founded a chain of luxury department stores called Aïshti, many of which display a selection from his personal collection. In 2013, he created the Metropolitan Art Society, an exhibition space housed in a 19th-century Ottoman-style palace. But it was earlier, in 1989, that he began collecting art. Although his interest in art began with the classical paintings that were popular at the time in fashion boutique design, he has more recently expressed interest in collecting contemporary Lebanese art, and has been working toward opening a museum of contemporary art in Beirut.
Patrizia Sandretto: Collector and patron of the arts, as well as the Founder of the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo.
Photo: Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin
Patrizia Sandretto (Italy)
Sandretto says that she has always been a collector—as a girl, she collected vintage pill boxes, and she has been amassing a trove of costume jewelry since the 1980s—but she only began to assemble her collection of international contemporary art in the early 90s. Since then, it has grown to contain over 1,000 pieces made between 1970 and the current day, among them works by Paul McCarthy, Thomas Hirschhorn, Piotr Uklanski, Pawel Althamer, Hans-Peter Feldmann, Thomas Demand, Thomas Ruff, Fischli&Weiss, Anish Kapoor, Damien Hirst, Cindy Sherman, Maurizio Cattelan and Ragnar Kjartansson. She recently acquired a video by Laure Prouvost, and a series of five paintings by Jakub Julian Ziolkowski, which were presented at the 2013 Venice Biennale.
Eric Schmidt.
Photo: patrickmcmullan.com
Eric Schmidt (United States)
Despite the 21st-century nature of his work, Google Executive Chairman (and former CEO) Eric Schmidt likes to keep his art somewhat more classic, favoring works by Picasso, Rothko, and Cézanne. “To me, it all begins with him," he told Artsy.com last year about Cézanne. In the contemporary vein, he's a diehard fan of Rudolf Stingel, whose show at Palazzo Grassi, he said, will “prove to be historical."
*More Collectors To Watch:
Alison Pincus
Heather Podesta
Colette and Michel Poitevin
Thomas J. and Margot Pritzker
Bob Rennie
Craig Robins
Deedie and Rusty Rose
Stephen Ross
Charles Saatchi
Alex Sainsbury
Alain Servais.
Photo: BFA.
Alain Servais (Belgium)
Servais, a Belgian investment banker, is known for juxtaposing key historical artworks with those by young or emerging artists. Since making his first “real" art purchases in 1996—two photographs from Nan Goldin's “James King: Supermodel" series, and one from Andres Serrano's “A History of Sex"—he has built a substantial collection of work in various mediums, especially by video and internet-based artists. Describing the core of his collection as a recently purchased $3,000 video by Mexican artist Arturo Hernández Alcázar, he has said that he makes regular visits to art fairs, galleries, and biennials, takes photos and notes, and then goes through them every three months, asking himself: “which ones am I missing?" He's also a known presence in the art world's Twittersphere.
Carlos Slim.
Photo: via Wikipedia.
Carlos Slim (Mexico)
Mexican billionaire Slim, who ranked in 2010 as the world's richest man, opened the Museo Soumaya in 2011 to house selections from his personal collection of some 66,000 pieces. These include a smorgasbord of European art from the Renaissance to Rodin, featuring da Vincis, Toulouse-Lautrecs, Picassos, and Dalís, Riveras and Renoirs, religious relics and even a treasure of coins from the viceroys of Spain, with Mexican work folded in. Slim also owns the second-largest collection in the world of works by Rodin.
Julia Stoschek.
Photo: Courtesy of Billy Farrell/ Patrick McMullan.
Julia Stoschek (Germany)
A scion of an automotive-parts dynasty, Stoschek has emerged as one of Germany's most prominent champions of video and time-based media art over the course of the past decade. She has amassed a 560-piece collection that showcases both long-established artists like Bruce Nauman and rising stars like Clemens von Wedemeyer. The Julia Stoschek Foundation, which she opened in 2007, presents selections across media from her holdings, incorporating installations, videos, and photographs with paintings and sculptures.
Budi Tek.
Photo: Courtesy of LeapLeapLeap.
Budi Tek (Indonesia)
Chinese-Indonesian entrepreneur, philanthropist, and collector Budi Tek amassed his fortune in the food industry, and he sits on the Asia-Pacific acquisitions committee of the Tate Modern in London. In 2008, he opened the Yuz Museum in Jakarta, which launched a second venue in Shanghai's Xuhui district last year; his next museum in Bali—described by the Financial Times as a “destination" art park with luxury residences—is rumored to be in the works. His collection initially focused on Chinese contemporary painting from the 1980s and 1990s, but has expanded to include works in a variety of media, influential artists from China such as Ai Weiwei and Zhang Xiaogang, and Western artists such as Maurizio Cattelan and Adel Abdessemed.
J. Tomilson Hill, Janine Hill
Photo: Paul Porter/BFAnyc.com
Janine and J. Tomilson Hill III (United States)
Recently declared a billionaire by Bloomberg (his art collection alone has been valued at over $500 million), Hill is known for bold and eclectic pairings: In the foyer of his New York apartment, Warhol's Electric Chair (Red) (1964) hangs adjacent to a 16th century sculpture Figure of a Man Wearing a Satyr's Mask, which was originally part of a fountain by Adriaen de Vries. The art collection that he and his wife Janine have been building over several decades includes over 100 bronzes as well as works by Christopher Wool, Francis Bacon, and 25 works by Andy Warhol.
Trevor Traina.
Photo: patrickmcmullan.com
Trevor Traina (United States)
“Collecting is a disease that runs in the family," tech entrepreneur Traina recently told Forbes, adding that his father collected Fabergé jewelry and vintage cars. Beyond his 300-piece photography collection, which includes works by Walker Evans, Robert Frank, Cindy Sherman and Andreas Gursky (he made waves in 2004 when he bought an iconic Diane Arbus photograph of identical twins for just under $500,000 at Sotheby's), he also collects sculpture and painting. Lining the walls of his San Francisco home are statues by Frederic Remington and a painting by Richard Serra. Two years ago, Traina's collection was exhibited at the de Young Museum, where he is a board member.
Alice Walton.
Photo: patrickmcmullan.com
Alice Walton (United States)
Heiress to the Walmart fortune, Walton is worth some $35 billion and is best known for founding the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas, which houses a selection of masterpieces from her personal collection, which is itself valued in the hundreds of millions of dollars. These include Andy Warhol's iconic Coca-Cola bottle, Winslow Homer's Blackwell Island, and John Singer Sargent's portrait of Robert Louis Stevenson and his wife, among many others. In February, Walton set the Internet ablaze when she spent $44.4 million at Sotheby's to purchase Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1. by Georgia O'Keeffe, the most expensive work of art ever painted by a woman, now in the Crystal Bridges collection (see O'Keeffe Painting Sells for $44 Million at Sotheby's, Sets Record for Work by Female Artist at Auction).
Robert and Nicky Wilson.
Photo: arterritory.com
Robert & Nicky Wilson (United Kingdom)
Scottish art collectors Robert and Nicky Wilson are the owners of Bonnington House, a Jacobean manor and sculpture park located on 100 acres near Edinburgh, and featuring sculptures by Antony Gormley and Anish Kapoor. The first work the couple ever commissioned from a contemporary artist was a sculpture titled Love Bomb by Marc Quinn, and they are currently collecting works by Alex Dordoy, Samara Scott, Sara Barker, and Nicolas Party.
Elaine Wynn.
Photo: patrickmcmullan.com
Elaine Wynn (United States)
The Las Vegas hotel magnate—who separated from business partner and former husband Steven A. Wynn, another art lover, in 2010—was revealed by the New York Times to have been the 2013 buyer of Francis Bacon's Three Studies of Lucian Freud (1969) for $142.4 million at Christie's New York. It is the most expensive work of art sold at auction, and to acquire it, Wynn outbid the likes of Larry Gagosian and Korean dealer and collector Hong Gyu Shin.
Lu Xun.
Photo: Courtesy of Sotheby's.
Lu Xun (China)
Lu Xun, son of real-estate developer and Sifang Culture Group president Lu Jun, has said that his collecting budget comes from various investments in education and the restaurant business; together with his father, he opened the Sifang Art Museum outside of Nanjing in 2013, and is actively buying and commissioning contemporary artists from around the world to create site-specific work for its premises. Its holdings number somewhere around 300 pieces, and feature artists include Danh Vō and Yutaka Sone, who is currently designing a marble-and-vegetable garden for the museum.
*More Collectors To Watch:
Muriel and Freddy Salem
Denise and Andrew Saul
Steven A. Schwarzman
Carole Server and Oliver Frankel
Ramin Salsali
David Shuman
Stefan Simchowitz
Elizabeth and Frederick Singer
Jay Smith and Laura Rapp
Jeffrey and Catherine Soros
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