Billionaire Chinese couple spend more than half their income on art

Shanghai tycoon Liu Yiqian and his wife, Wang Wei, have made international headlines after paying record prices for art.

Last November they bought Italian modernist Amedeo Modigliani’s 1917 Nu Couché [Reclining Nude] for US$170.4 million at a Christie’s auction.

Naked ambition: Chinese billionaire Liu Yiqian’s purchase of Modigliani nude is the seventh artwork to cost him more than HK$100m

Before that they bought a palm-sized Ming dynasty cup for HK$281 million, HK$348 million for a traditional Tibetan tapestry and 308 million yuan for a work by ancient master calligrapher master Wang Xizhi.

Wang, 53, says the artworks have been bought with their fortune amassed thanks to her billionaire husband’s success investing in China’s stock market, funds from some of his finance companies, plus a small amount of money donated by some “good-hearted” companies.

“More than half of our income has been spent on artworks, because we love art,” Wang said.

“We bought artworks and built museums to display them to the public because of our genuine passion for art,” Wang said.

Many wealthy collectors prefer to shun the spotlight, but Liu and Wang are happy to attract international publicity as a result of their purchases.