Along with its food, its bookstores and its bike shares, Taiwan is known for its art collectors. The island’s strong Chinese roots make classical ink and Asian antiquities popular, but Western classics, Japanese Pop art and global contemporary art all find a market—often within the same collection. Huang Yaji of Aura Gallery says Taiwanese collectors commonly pursue “Modern Chinese paintings, Chinese calligraphy and contemporary Western or Japanese or Chinese arts at the same time. Just as collectors in New York [buy] a Manet or an Oscar Murillo.”
The Taiwanese market “is very inclusive”, says Odile Chen from the auction house Ravenel. “Back when Chinese contemporary art was still neglected at auction, Taiwan galleries sold them, and from around 2001, Ravenel already included the [then] unconventional works of Zhang Xiaogang and Wang Guangyi in its auction list.”
Many of Taiwan’s top collectors are tech entrepreneurs. Most are members of the influential Ching Wan Society of collectors. They include Pierre Chen (Chen Taiming), the chief executive of the electronics parts group Yageo. He has collected Western and Chinese Modern and contemporary art since the 1990s, as well as Chinese porcelain, and in May paid $26m for Swamped (1990) by the Scottish-born artist Peter Doig.
Frank Huang (Huang Chongren), the chief executive of Powerchip Technology, collects Chinese porcelain, Impressionism and Modern art. The Shanghai-born, Hong Kong-raised Barry Lam (Lin Baili), the founder and chairman of laptop manufacturer Quanta Computer and the seventh president of Ching Wan, has a collection of more than a 1,000 paintings, including more than 250 by the Chinese master Zhang Daqian. Robert Tsao (Cao Xingcheng), Ching Wan’s fifth president, is considered one of the world’s great collectors of Chinese art and antiquities, with an extensive collection ranging from Neolithic jades to contemporary art. The founder of the chipmaker United Microelectronics, Tsao sits on the board of trustees of San Francisco’s Asian Art Museum Foundation. Rudy Ma (Ma Zhiling), the founder of Yuanta Financial and the third president of Ching Wan, collects Chinese antiquities, particularly porcelains.