The economic sanctions against Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich have had an unintentional side effect, having placed an art collection reportedly worth almost $1 billion in an ownership limbo. While it was no secret that Abramovich and his ex-wife Dasha Zhukova were at one time prolific art collectors, the precise composition of their collection was always a mystery. But now, The Guardian has uncovered the details of what it calls Abramovich's "extraordinary spending spree" across almost ten years, and what Andrew Renton, the professor of curating at Goldsmiths, University of London, calls "a stupendous collection."
The total value of the collection, which is made up of more than 300 pieces (367, to be precise) spanning many different eras of art history, is estimated to be $963 million. At least ten of the 367 pieces were purchased by Abramovich for more than $25 million.
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Back in February of 2022, Abramovich reduced his stake in the trust fund that actually owns the collection, with the majority of ownership rights reverting to his ex-wife per the terms of the 2016 divorce. Guardian art critic Jonathan Jones explained how Abramovich and Zhukova collected the paintings for display in their own homes:
"Before European and British sanctions, Abramovich was loaning widely yet also treating his private residences as personal museums, hanging early 20th-century classics by Matisse and Picasso in his 1920s villa in the south of France, while intense contemporary art including Richter and Auerbach gave stylish seriousness to his London home."
The collection includes everything from classics by Picasso and Bacon to more modern pieces like 1995's "Benefits Supervisor Sleeping" by Lucian Freud. But Jones seems to think that they aren't all a demonstration of good artistic taste, and some of them seem to have been acquired specifically for their high price points:
"Yet the deeper you look, the less sure you can be of what this collection means to Abramovich. The sheer expense is so staggering it starts to seem as if quality is just equated with price. Cindy Sherman's 'Untitled Film Stills,' in which she posed as a Hitchcock heroine, are powerful but they are photographic multiples: why pay more than $3m for one particular print of a reproducible image? At least this is more understandable than the $7,669,845 spent on the overrated Richard Prince's dumb canvas 'Surf Safari Nurse.'"
Whatever an art critic might think about some of the individual pieces he acquired during his collection spree, Abramovich used his ample financial resources to assemble what is probably one of the most impressive art collections in history, and Abramovich appears to have taken steps to protect it from international economic sanctions. He decreased his stake in the collection's trust to 49 percent, and signed another agreement that precludes him from ever increasing his share, a move that protects him from sanctions that can only be applied to assets that the sanctioned individual in question owns more than half of.
Since the sanctions on Abramovich began to be imposed, nothing in the collection has been sold or donated, even though it isn't subject to any direct freezing orders. Art expert Georgina Adam told The Guardian that this has had an indirect effect on the art world, and for members of the public at large:
"These sanctions were imposed for good reason. Now, the consequence of Mr. Abramovich's investment in art is that the public are deprived of the opportunity to enjoy some of the greatest modern and contemporary works."
The geopolitical situation in Ukraine has far more important stakes than a bunch of paintings, even particularly valuable ones, but it's amazing to think about how such a collection is basically in cold storage until the war ends and sanctions are lifted.
