Taxi driver-turned-billionaire Liu Yiqian, founder of China's Long Museum, has big plans after US$170m purchase at New York auction

The record-breaking US$170 million acquisition of an Amedeo Modigliani painting at a recent New York auction might have stunned the world, but the world's best-known Chinese art collector says it was just a prologue to a more ambitious plan.

"I want to build a museum that is an attraction to old and young, local citizens and international audiences," Liu Yiqian said in an interview with the South China Morning Post during a brief stop in Hong Kong. "I hope my museum will stay for hundreds of years."

The taxi driver-turned-billionaire has made international headlines with his recent acquisition of Modigliani's Nu Couché at a Christie's auction in New York. He won the bid with a record US$170.4 million, the world's second most expensive artwork ever sold.

Liu, who co-founded the Long Museum - now China's largest private art museum - in Shanghai with his wife, Wang Wei, planned to buy more top-notch Western masterpieces to attract international visitors. He said he had a list of artworks in mind. "But I'm not going to tell you."

The sale has put Liu in the global spotlight. From being photographed sipping tea from the US$36 million "chicken cup" he acquired from a Sotheby's Hong Kong sale last year to the Modigliani painting, many have questioned the agenda - and financial backing - behind all the flashy acquisitions.