Liu Yiqian and Wang Wei, the Chinese language billionaire collector couple who based the Lengthy Museum in Shanghai, one of many nation’s most distinguished personal artwork establishments, will promote a portion of their assortment by means of Sotheby’s in Hong Kong later this yr.
“Sotheby’s is honoured to be bringing to its Hong Kong sale rooms a really excellent group of works from the legendary assortment of Liu Yiqian and Wang Wei—two of the best collectors of our time,” says Nicholas Chow, Sotheby’s chairman, in an announcement. “Although the works to be supplied characterize only a tiny fraction of the couple’s huge assortment, the scope of the providing, which spans every part from works by the best names in artwork historical past to newer items by in the present day’s rising stars, is totally reflective of the expansive and enlightened method that has at all times underpinned Liu and Wang’s accumulating journey.”
Proceeds from the forthcoming gross sales are “destined to additional key initiatives on the Lengthy museum” the assertion provides, and also will “fund future acquisitions and the continued fostering of cultural dialogues between totally different artists, geographies and generations”.
Liu, an entrepreneur famed for rising from a taxi driver to considered one of China’s richest individuals, is the chair and cofounder of Guohua Life Insurance coverage. Within the first half of 2023, Guohua introduced losses of between $23.3m and $28.7m, in response to China’s Financial Info Newspaper.
In response to Sotheby’s assertion, round 50 work from the couple’s assortment might be bought, together with works by Amadeo Modigliani, Zao Wou-ki, Kazuo Shirago, Leonard Foujita, René Magritte, David Hockney, Matthew Wong, Dana Schutz, Nicolas Social gathering and Georgette Chen and Yayoi Kusama.
Sources near the story say that the couple may also promote round an extra 50 works at Sotheby’s in New York, and that the gross sales will embody not less than one main work from the gathering. Sotheby’s haven’t denied this declare.
Sotheby’s assertion avoids commenting on the way forward for the Lengthy Museum, which first opened in late 2012 in Shanghai. A second Shanghai location launched in 2014, and a Chongqing department opened within the Guohua Monetary Middle in 2016. Plans for a fourth location in Wuhan look like tabled. China’s zero-Covid period noticed the closure of one other personal museum, Guangzhou’s acclaimed Occasions Museum, in late 2021 because of the monetary woes of its property firm backer.
Liu and Wang have for the previous decade been among the many most prolific artwork collectors worldwide in addition to avid supporters of Chinese language up to date artwork. An enormous sell-off of Chinese language artists below the present sluggish markets might dent pricing that till now has solely risen exponentially.
