Even as the cost of his quarry pulled away from the $100-million mark, Liu Yiqian remained calm.
“I was on the phone with a girl from Christie’s Hong Kong who was bidding on my behalf, and she kept dropping the phone because she was so nervous,” Mr. Liu recalled in his Beijing hotel room. “I told her: ‘Why are you so nervous? I’m the one paying, and I’m not even nervous. Just buy it’.”
Thus did Mr. Liu manage to secure “it” — an oil portrait of an outstretched nude woman by the early-20th-century artist Amedeo Modigliani — at a Christie’s auction in New York on November 9.
During the tense nine-minute sale, he beat out five opponents by offering $170.4 million with fees, the second-highest price ever paid for an art work at auction. The highest price paid was for Picasso’s 1955 painting Les Femmes d’Alger (Version ‘O’) , which sold for $179.4 million, including fees, at a Christie’s auction in May.
“As soon as I heard that it went to an Asian buyer, I knew it was him,” said Wang Wei, Liu’s wife, who was in Hong Kong at the time.
“Modigliani didn’t make very many nude paintings, and this is one of his best,” she added. “It was definitely worth it.”
Before last week, the couple, both 52, had already made a name for themselves in China’s art circles, he in particular as the most flamboyant of the country’s small group of major collectors. To many, Mr. Liu is the brash former taxi driver-turned-billionaire who provoked an uproar when he bought a tiny Ming dynasty porcelain cup for $36.3 million at a Sotheby’s auction — and proceeded to be photographed drinking tea from the antique vessel.
Driving forceMs. Wang is known as the driving force and general director behind the couple’s Long Museum, which has two locations in Shanghai. (“Long” means “dragon” in Chinese.) Over more than 20 years, the two have amassed an extensive collection of mostly traditional and contemporary Chinese art, much of it on display in the museum locations.
Days after their latest blockbuster purchase, they were back at it, flying to Beijing to attend the fall sales of a top auction house, China Guardian. They said their goal was to transform the Long Museum into a world-class destination that could compete with the likes of the Museum of Modern Art and the Guggenheim Museum in New York.
And nothing, Mr. Liu said, says world class quite like a Modigliani nude.
“Every museum dreams of having a Modigliani nude,” he said. “Now, a Chinese museum has a globally recognised masterpiece, and my fellow countrymen no longer have to leave the country to see a Western masterpiece. I feel very proud about that.”
He added, “The message to the West is clear: We have bought their buildings, we have bought their companies, and now we are going to buy their art.”
With his acquisition of the nude, a 1917-18 canvas known as Nu Couché , that message certainly seems to have gotten across.
“This purchase was a proclamation of his arrival,” said Thomas Galbraith, managing director of auctions at Paddle8, an online auction house. “Anyone in the art world who didn’t know his name knows it now.”
Hobby to obsessionChina’s art market was still in its nascent stages when the couple began attending auctions and buying art in the early 1990s. What started as a hobby became an obsession.
While Mr. Liu preferred collecting traditional Chinese art works and objects, Mr. Wang focussed on acquiring art from the Cultural Revolution era and, later, contemporary Chinese art and art from throughout Asia.
They began to collect Western artists as well, and their holdings now include work from Jeff Koons’ mirror-polished sculpture series.
Several years ago, Wang, a self-proclaimed “art fanatic”, came up with the idea of opening a museum so they could show their collection to the public. But first she needed to persuade Liu.
“All of our friends were buying private planes, and he said he wanted to buy a plane, too,” she said. “I refused. I said: ‘Let’s just put in some more money and start a museum. It will be good for Shanghai, and it will be good for the country.”
Cai Jinqing, president of Christie’s China, said the couple represented the “best example” of this generation of Chinese art collectors.
“They started with collecting what they know, Chinese art, then broadened to Asian art, and are now embracing Western art,” Mr. Cai said.
But few collectors in China flaunt their wealth the way the couple do, particularly as the government cracks down on extravagance. Mr. Liu, who is an active stock trader, said he was not concerned about the crackdown, stating that he acquired his money through legal means.
Critics aboundMany have criticised the couple for profligacy and a perceived lack of taste. In discussions about them, the word tuhao , a popular Chinese term for crass nouveaux riches, is frequently tossed around.
“I am definitely a tuhao ,” Liu said defiantly. “But at least this tuhao is bringing a masterpiece back to China for the Chinese people to enjoy.” — New York Times News Service
