For love, for art

Power duo: Liu Yiqian and Wang Wei have now opened three Long Museums in China. A fourth will be opened in Wuhan in two years. [Photo by Gao Erqiang/China Daily]

Liu, who started his career making bags in his home and has even worked as a taxi driver, made his fortune in the early 1990s in the stock market. Today, the tycoon is the president of several listed companies and he recently made the headlines with the takeover of Changjiang Securities, a Wuhan-based brokerage.

Liu began to invest in art in the 1990s and had earned himself the notoriety of buying the cover piece of the catalogue at the auctions he attended. His interest was mainly in ancient Chinese art, and his wife Wang Wei has also amassed an impressive number of modern Chinese art and "revolutionary art" from the 1950s to 1970s.

In 2015, Liu bought Nu couché, a 1917 painting by Italian artist Amedeo Modigliani, as a gift for Wang who had fallen in love with the piece at first sight.

Most people would agree that the latter is the one with the true passion for art. Even Liu suggested so himself.

"Be it to sell or rent, I built the towers to make money from it," quipped Liu during his speech at the banquet.

"But my wife decided that she wanted to have the first three floors for a new museum."