Eclectic Pursuits

Known for his 10,000-strong collection of art, property developer George Wong spoke to sonia kolesnikov-jessop about the hobby that evolved into a lifelong passion

as a young student in England, George Wong had several framed posters by Salvador Dali on his bedroom wall. Back then, his interest in the Spanish surrealist master only cost him £2.50. “Since then Dali has been part of my life,” muses the 65-year-old collector, who is reputed to have amassed the largest collection of Salvador Dali sculptures outside of Spain.

Most of Wong’s Dali pieces are displayed in and around his high-end residential properties and hotels, though he has also donated some to the Nanjing and Jimei universities in China, as well as the National Museum of China. “I feel Dali’s sculptures fit very naturally in my buildings and they’re also surprisingly not really expensive,” he says.

What started as a hobby has become a passion project for the former Beijing-based property developer. It is one he shares with others through his Parkview Arts Action, the art outreach arm of the Parkview Group that runs private museums in its buildings in Beijing and Singapore.

While the trained architect started buying Chinese classical ink landscapes and English old-school masters in the 1980s, he moved on to Chinese contemporary art in the 1990s at a time when few collectors showed interest. As his interest and wallet deepened, he also turned to Western greats like Claude Monet, Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso. Today, his massive art collection, said to contain more than 10,000 works, includes a range of styles from Chinese archaic bronzes and Buddha stone carvings to paintings by Zeng Fanzhi, Zhang Xiaogang and Francis Bacon. If money were no object he would have bought the Leonardo da Vinci work, Salvator Mundi, that sold at Christie’s in November for US$450 million, “I was just short of one zero,” he quips. But that same week he managed to pick up two artworks at the Sotheby’s sale in New York: A small Roy Lichtenstein and an Yves Klein.

Wong is the eldest son of the late Taiwanese property tycoon CS Hwang, who founded the Chyau Fwu Group in Taiwan in the 1950s before moving the headquarters to Hong Kong. Along with his three brothers, he owns the Parkview Group, a conglomerate of private companies with interests in high-end residential and hotel developments in Asia and Europe, including the imposing art deco-style Parkview Square in Singapore (where one of the private museums is located).

Wong developed a collecting bug early on, using his pocket money to buy stamps and coins. “As I started getting more money, I started buying more things,” he shares, adding that it was a visit to a London art gallery in 1971 with his father that got him started collecting art.

“My father had come to see us in London and we were walking in the street when we saw an art gallery. We walked in and he bought a painting for 17,000 guineas (£17,800). At the time we had just bought a fivebedroom house for £25,000. I was shocked. How could a painting be worth so much?”

While still collecting Chinese contemporary art, Wong says he has become “more inspired” by Western contemporary artists, who have a lot more layers in their work, in his later years.

“I find Chinese contemporary art overpriced and many artists are arrogant. They’re disconnected; they just want to see the money.”

Since 2013, he has been aggressively collecting Italian post-war and contemporary art, which he came upon thanks to one of the four private art advisors he has on his team. “I love to go to Italy. I love the food, the people and many artists have been very welcoming. Somehow, although I’ve lived in London it’s never been the case there,” he says.

The connection and personal relationship he’s developed with artists is very important to Wong, who regularly visits their studios. “The work has a lot more meaning when you’ve met the artists. It’s not just about buying one of their paintings directly. You become friends and that leads to more art,” he lets on, adding he has become particularly good friends with Liu Xiaodong and Zeng Fanzhi.

But he doesn’t like buying directly from the artists: “Sometimes the artist doesn’t want to part with his work, so you have to do a lot of negotiation. I prefer to buy at auction, because it’s fair competition.”

Though an experienced collector, he still gets a thrill from bidding at auction and has sometimes become carried away: “Four years ago, I bought a beautiful Magritte. The auction estimate was something like $600,000 and it went there immediately, so I said to myself $800,000, and it went to $1 million. I told myself, ‘ OK, bid $1 million and if you don’t get it, forget it.’ I paid $2.7 million! But I have it now; it’s in Hong Kong.”

Wong never believed art should be stored in a warehouse. As he ran out of space on the walls of his homes, the Executive Chairman of the Parkview Group started peppering the public areas of the group’s many properties with his acquisitions. In 2014, the art patron set up Parkview Arts Action, which started its work by organising On Sharks & Humanity, an environmentally themed exhibition to raise awareness about the plight of sharks caught for their fins. That exhibition has toured Monaco, Moscow, Beijing, Singapore and Hong Kong. In the same year, he also opened the Parkview Green Museum in Beijing — this was followed by a second one in Singapore last year. The museums present thematic exhibitions that draw primarily, though not exclusively, on Wong’s collection. As he explains, “It’s just easier to organise and control.”

The Artist’s Voice, held in Singapore until March 17, explores how artists use their art to convey political, economic and social messages that reflect and address some of the complexities of our time. It features ambitious and thoughtprovoking works by 34 prominent international artists, including Marina Abramović, Bill Viola, Wang Luyan and Maurizio Nannucci.

Wong enjoys strong artworks that makes him think — it’s clear from this selection. Among them is a powerful photograph from the Balkan Baroque performance of Abramović at the Venice Biennale in 1997. As a response to human cost of the ethnically driven Yugoslav Wars, she scrubbed clean 1,500 cow bones over four days, working six hours a day, while weeping and singing folks songs from her native country.

“This exhibition is a very deep interrogation on what is the narrative in contemporary art, what is the voice of the artist, what is the message, what are they trying to say, what artists can tell us in this world that is not very peaceful,” explains Lorand Hegyi, artistic director of the museum, who curated the exhibition.

“It is simply about what artists say. They do not merely paint a beautiful picture or make a sculpture; they say something with that. There is a strong message, there is something personal, something very much engaged with real life,” Hegyi adds.

It is through his museums and exhibitions such as this that Wong’ passion for art and its commentary will inspire and influence generations to come. Editor’s note: This interview with George Wong was conducted a fortnight before the esteemed art patron passed away.

“The work has a lot more meaning when you’ve met the artists. It’s not just about buying one of their paintings directly. You become friends and that leads to more art”