Chinese collector Nancy Mo aims to offer world-class art education in Hong Kong

They are the kind of art world heavyweights who would add legitimacy and gravitas to any creative project. Pi Li is a well-known critic and curator working at M+, Terry Huang is a former adviser to the Museum of Modern Art in New York and now runs an international art fund and Wallace Chan is a jewellery designer whose works have been shown in museums around the world.

All three have become honorary advisers of Y. Art, a private, Putonghua-only art school in Wong Chuk Hang for students between the ages of three and 18. An odd group, you might think, to show a close interest in an obscure project. But that's not taking into account the enthusiasm and sheer charisma of the school's founder Nancy Mo.

Huang and Chan wax lyrical about her. "I have known Nancy for many years and we've been close friends since before she married. She's a perfectionist and very passionate as an art collector. Her love of art is so strong she wants to transfer that spirit to an education platform, one that can pass knowledge on to the next generation," says Chan.

"The main reason I'm helping her is because she is one of my best friends," says Huang, managing partner and co-founder of Motif Art Group, a New York-based art investment firm.

"But I also believe with art education you don't just teach young people theory. They must learn to appreciate beauty, to enjoy what they are looking at. Nancy's school teaches that and I believe not many art schools do that," he says.

In person, the mother of three is a blend of iron-willed determination and disarming charm. Tall and striking, Mo has wonderful stories to tell about her family - her grandfather was German and her grandmother was the daughter of China's ambassador to Britain in the late Qing dynasty - and her time on the Chinese national tennis team as a teenager.