Guy Ullens, a Belgian billionaire who constructed up one of the vital necessary collections of Chinese language up to date artwork on the planet, has died at 90. The information was introduced on social media by the UCCA Middle for Up to date Artwork in Beijing, which Ullens had cofounded. The museum didn’t present a trigger.
“As one of many earliest worldwide collectors to champion Chinese language artists, Ullens helped convey international recognition to Chinese language artists and their work,” the UCCA stated on Instagram. “His devoted efforts additionally formed the inspiration for UCCA’s development into the establishment we’re immediately, in China and globally. … We bear in mind him with deep respect and gratitude. His legacy endures—within the establishments he based, the artists he championed, and within the communities he helped construct—and can proceed to form and encourage UCCA’s work and mission.”
Ullens started gathering artwork within the Nineteen Sixties “with a concentrate on new territories and pioneer artists,” based on his eponymous basis’s website. However when he first began doing enterprise in China in 1984, his gathering pursuits took a flip that will in the end outline his legacy.
Initially, he started shopping for Chinese language antiquities, together with scroll work from the Track, Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties. That led him to fulfill Chinese language up to date artists like Ai Weiwei at a second when the scene was considerably increasing, as Ullens told the Wall Road Journal in 2013.
Along with his late spouse Myriam, Ullens would go on to purchase necessary works by Liu Xiaodong, Liu Wei, Zeng Fanzhi, Huang Yong Ping, Wang Keping, and extra, usually for comparatively low costs. His assortment would finally comprise between 1,500 and a pair of,000 works, with a lot of it saved in Geneva. The couple ranked on the ARTnews Prime 200 Collectors checklist annually between 2008 and 2015.
In 2007, the couple established the Ullens Middle for Up to date Artwork in Beijing’s 798 Artwork Zone as a personal museum for his or her assortment. The establishment will be partially credited with setting off a wave of personal museums that sprung up in China within the decade that adopted.
The Ullenses sought a purchaser for his or her museum in 2016, promoting it to Chinese language buyers in 2017. The establishment was then renamed the UCCA Middle for Up to date Artwork.
Along with supporting artists, Ullens additionally helped set up a secondary marketplace for Chinese language up to date artwork, promoting works from the gathering over time, together with in 2017, when when he and his spouse auctioned off 50 works. One such consignment, Zeng’s The Final Supper, offered for $23.3 million at Sotheby’s Hong Kong in 2013, setting the public sale report for up to date Asian artwork on the time. The rationale they gave: to purchase extra artwork.
“Our job as collectors is to advertise younger artists,” Ullens advised the Journal. “I would like my artwork to offer me goose bumps. Once I get them, I do know it’s one thing good.”
Man François Edouard Marie Ullens de Schooten Whettnall was born on January 31, 1935, in San Francisco to Baron Jean Ullens and Baroness Marie Thérèse Ullens, who served as diplomats within the US on the time. Each got here from noble Belgian households. The Ullens household was ennobled in 1693 by Charles II of Spain, when Belgium was beneath Spanish rule, according to Politico.
After incomes a legislation diploma and an MBA from Stanford College, Man Ullens joined his household enterprise Raffinerie Tirlemontoise, which targeted on beet sugar refinery. He was instrumental within the firm’s operations increasing to Asia within the Eighties. In 1989, it offered to a German firm.
Shortly afterward, within the early ’90s, Ullens met Myriam when she was in search of buyers to develop her pastry enterprise. One potential investor was Ullens. She recalled experiencing a “coup de foudre,” telling Madame Figaro in 2014, “He’s my Pygmalion, the person whom I really like and who made me escape of my shell.”
On the time, Man was married with 4 youngsters, and Myriam had two youngsters of her personal. Man divorced his first spouse, and he and Myriam married in 1999. Round this time, Artal, one other Ullens-owned firm, acquired Weight Watchers for $735 million. Man would in the end retire from the enterprise in 2000, primarily to concentrate on his gathering and philanthropy. By this level, Myriam had already offered her pastry enterprise, later launching a luxurious trend model, Masion Ullens, in 2009.
By 2007, forward of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, they might open the UCCA. The establishment’s first exhibition, “’85 New Wave: The Beginning of Chinese language Up to date Artwork,” helped set up a canon for artwork from this era and relied totally on the Ullenss holdings.
In 2023, Myriam was murdered exterior the couple’s residence close to Brussels. Her stepson Nicolas Ullens introduced himself to the Belgian authorities and confessed to the killing, according to the New York Instances. Myriam was discovered lifeless in a Volkswagen, with Man subsequent to her, his legs wounded. Nicolas reportedly fired six pictures on the two. A month later, Man filed a civil go well with in opposition to his son. Nicolas has denied that the homicide was premeditated.
The reason for the slaying was extensively reported within the Belgian press to should do with an inheritance dispute. Nicolas was launched beneath home arrest after spending six months in jail, based on Politico; he’s nonetheless awaiting a trial that’s estimated to begin in 2026.
In reflecting on his gathering practices specializing in Chinese language up to date artists, in a 2018 interview with the Asian Artwork Newspaper, Man stated, “We have been those who occurred to assist them and we began to amass work. We have been pushed by sheer enthusiasm!”
