THE COLLECTORS
FINE ART
IS A
GIRL’S BEST
FRIEND
Madonna’s been spending thousands on
collectable masterpieces for 22 years. Now,
finally, the rest of us are catching on
bviously we’d all ideally be
artists. We’d have huge airy
studios, picturesque splashes
O
of paint on our overalls and
sensitive but muscular young
assistants to carry our materials.
Unfortunately we’ve not all got Tracey
Emin’s talent. The next best thing to making
art is collecting it. Rich and famous women
are now discovering the satisfaction in
nurturing new talent or acquiring objects of
beauty by legendary names. The purchases
are public statements of taste and
sophistication – art says more about you than
another pair of Laboutins ever can.
Socialite and partner of billionaire Chelsea
boss Roman Abramovich, Dasha Zhukova, 28,
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WORDS: ROSAMUND WITCHER
is the latest in a long line of successful
women to move her money into art, snapping
up pieces by Francis Bacon, Edgar Degas and
Lucian Freud. Her passion for art inspired
her to host the Serpentine Summer Party
last year, and to convert one of Moscow’s
industrial landmarks, the Bakhmetevsky Bus
Garage in Moscow, into a gallery.
Detractors were quick to question
Zhukova’s motives, unimpressed by the
celebrity-studded bash. The Wall Street
Journal harshly branded her “just another
oligarch princess frittering away millions in
her quest for social standing and substance”.
But her passion in the art world is typical of
a new generation of women keen to
snap up ‘investment with soul’.
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