Billionaire philanthropist Eli Broad is the world’s top art collector, according to a new database containing profiles of more than 3,000 wealthy buyers.
Broad, whose contemporary art museum in Los Angeles is scheduled to open next year, is ranked by the website Larry’s List, based in Hong Kong.
The site provides contact information about collectors in more than 70 countries and details of the specific artworks they’ve bought over the years. Names of artists can be entered into a search feature that lists who collects them. Individual collector profiles can be purchased for $9.50 each from the site, which goes live this week.
Artists can access the information for free, Larry’s List Ltd. said in an e-mail.
“There will be reluctance at the beginning,” Magnus Resch, the company’s founder, said in an interview. “We believe it will be a standard tool at some point. It’s cheap compared to other databases compiled from accessible sources.”
Resch, 29, said information about the collectors was compiled by 25 researchers using freely available media. The collectors themselves were not consulted, he said.
The database ranks collectors according to Internet presence, institutional engagement, art fair participation, communications platforms, and the physical visibility and scale of their collection.
According to these criteria, Eli and Edythe Broad are the world’s No. 1 art collectors, followed by Cyprus-born Dakis Joannou and the London-based couple, Anita and Poju Zabludowicz.
These rankings contrast with the 2013 ARTnews 200 assessment which has Helene and Bernard Arnault, Debra and Leon Black and the Broads occupying the top three spots.
An inaugural 60-page “Larry’s List Art Collector Report” will be published in the fall, said Resch.