Guy Ullens, collector and patron of Chinese contemporary art, has died, aged 90

Baron Guy Ullens de Schooten, the art collector and patron who cofounded Beijing’s Ullens Center for Contemporary Art (UCCA) in 2007 with his wife Myriam Ullens, passed away on 19 April at the age 90.

Already a longtime avid collector, Ullens became an enthusiastic supporter of Chinese contemporary art in its heady formative years in the 1980s and 90s. He would go on to accumulate a renowned collection of Chinese art, encompassing around 1,500 works by artists such as Huang Yong Ping, Qiu Zhijie and Cao Fei.

The couple’s enthusiasm for supporting Chinese contemporary art led to the establishment of their eponymous institution in Beijing’s 798 art district, which in the mid-2000s was only beginning to establish itself as a cultural complex. It opened with an exhibition of China’s seminal 1985 New Wave movement, featuring artists including Wang Guangyi, Gu Dexin and Yu Youhan. One of China’s earliest private institutions, UCCA’s ambitions to define the country’s burgeoning contemporary art scene would prove to make it influential worldwide.

“Guy Ullens believed above all in the power of art to enrich lives and create connections across cultures,” said Philip Tinari, the director and chief executive of UCCA, in a statement from the institution. “By founding an art institution in China, he put that belief into action, doing something wildly original and generous. UCCA, which he conceived and nurtured through its first decade, has highlighted hundreds of artists, inspired millions of visitors, and launched countless careers. With gratitude, we remember his kindness, passion, and cosmopolitanism, as we carry forward the project that he began.”

The couple established UCCA as a kunsthalle, with their collection held separately. In 2011 they auctioned off 195 works from their Chinese contemporary collection in two sales at Sotheby’s Hong Kong. In 2016 the Ullenses announced that UCCA was available for sale, and in 2017 they transferred it to a group of Chinese patrons who renamed it the UCCA Center for Contemporary Art and have expaned to locations in Qinhuangdao, Shanghai and Yixing.

A Belgian national born in San Francisco in 1935, Guy Ullens lived mostly in Switzerland, and retired from his investment fund Artal in 2000. He and Myriam also established the Fondation Guy & Miriam Ullens, the Ullens School Nepal and the Mimi Foundation supporting cancer patients. Guy Ullens’s honors included the French Legion of Honour and the Belgian Order of Leopold II.

Myriam Ullens was an entrepreneur who created the Maison Ullens brand in 2009. She was murdered in 2023 by Guy’s son and her stepson Nicolas Ullens over an inheritance dispute.

“As one of the earliest international collectors active in China, Ullens played a pivotal role in supporting a generation of Chinese artists and fostering global recognition of their work,” the UCCA statement says. “UCCA remembers Guy Ullens with the deepest respect and gratitude for his remarkable contributions, to UCCA, to the history of Chinese contemporary art, and to promoting global cultural exchange. His legacy endures—in the institutions he founded, the artists he championed, and in the communities he helped build—and will continue to shape and inspire UCCA’s work and mission.”