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Cairo writes, Beirut publishes, Baghdad reads...or so it was

Posted by Qasrani (Guest) - Monday, July 19 2004, 13:39:24 (CEST)
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Monday, July 19, 2004
Qatari declared world's most active art collector
Sheikh Saud, with his 'deep pockets, big closets and no memory,' is thought to be stocking up on material for 5 national museums

By Kaelen Wilson-Goldie
Daily Star staff

BEIRUT: Over the past year, Sheikh Saud bin Mohammed bin Ali al-Thani of Qatar - cousin to the emir and president of the country's National Council for Culture, Arts, and Heritage - has distinguished himself as the world's single most active and powerful art collector. According to the magazine ARTNews, which published its 14th annual list of the top 200 art collectors from around the globe last week, Sheikh Saud has become "the number one spender on art," dishing out millions on everything from contemporary photographs to Roman antiquities and ancient Islamic artifacts.

ARTNews, a monthly magazine based in New York that lays heavy emphasis on the business end of the art market, highlights Sheikh Saud among 10 heavyweights within the top 200. The Sultan of Brunei and London's Nasser David Khalili (said to possess one of the most comprehensive collections of Islamic material in private hands) are also included on the long list. But otherwise, Sheikh Saud is the single Arab collector, indeed the single non-Western collector, to make the final cut. (The top 10 consists mostly of well-known art world figures such as Las Vegas tycoon Stephen Wynn and New York scions Ronald and Leonard Lauder.)

According to an editorial by ARTNews publisher Milton Esterow, what characterizes the top 10 are "deep pockets, big closets and no memory," the last quality indicating an ability to forget previous prices that have been paid for a particular artist or object, giving a collector the ability to pay more without regret. The editorial also suggests that serious collectors tend to hit their stride at the age of 45. Sheikh Saud is not yet 40.

Sheikh Saud has been collecting seriously for the past decade. Ostensibly, he is buying to build collections for the five museums he is constructing in Doha: the Museum of Islamic Art (for which the sheikh reportedly dragged the Chinese-American architect IM Pei, now in his 80s and famous for expanding and modernizing the Louvre in Paris, out of retirement to design); a natural history museum and a Qatari national library, both rendered in a wildly futuristic design - levitating on three pillars - by Japanese architect Arata Isozaki; a museum of photography designed by the award-winning Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava, who, among other things, is responsible for the new transit hub at the World Trade Center site in New York; and a museum of traditional clothes and textiles to be housed in a converted castle designed by Scottish architect Catherine Findlay.

All of the museums will be located along Doha's tree-lined Corniche, on the coast of the Gulf. The first to open will be the Museum of Islamic Art, scheduled for completion in 2006. Sheikh Saud's first cousin, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, has charged him with transforming Qatar into a veritable cultural treasure trove for the Arab and Islamic world and Doha into a cultivated city for connoisseurs of both contemporary art and regional history. Not bad for a colossally rich country smaller than the state of Connecticut.

To build these collections, Sheikh Saud has become a fixture - not in physical presence but in purchasing force through a series of agents and advisers working on his behalf - in the salesrooms of such auction houses as Christie's, Sotheby's, and Drouot in Paris. In late April, he reportedly spent well over $28 million - in the course of just two days - during the sales of Islamic art at Christie's and Sotheby's in London. Among the sheikh's purchases were a pair of 17th century Mughal daggers in jade and a series of unusual Safavid tiles. He has bought so heavily in the field of Egyptian antiquities that art watchers anticipate that the market for them will dip when the sheikh fills his museums to the hilt.

Of course, not all of Sheikh Saud's purchases are for the public vault. He does not limit himself to one field or another, and has been buying across the board: antique bicycles, art deco furniture by Jacque-Emile Ruhlmann, vintage cameras and lenses, jewels and precious stones, natural history prints and more. He has one of the world's best pieces of Roman glass in his possession, dating back to the 3rd century BC. And his interest in photography, from 19th century to contemporary material, is said to stem more from personal passion than public interest. Sheikh Saud bought Gustave Le Gray's "Grande Vague a Sete" at Sotheby's last year for $840,370, which set the record for the most money paid at auction for a single photograph. Then at Christie's he set that record all over again, paying $922,490 for Girault de Prangey's daguerreotype "The Temple of Jupiter in Athens."

(In February, ARTNews listed Sheikh Saud in its list of the world's top 25 photography collectors, alongside New York investment banker and philanthropist Henry Buhl, San Francisco's Robert Fisher of the Gap, and British entertainer Elton John.)

However, as Beirut art dealer Saleh Barakat points out, all the purchasing being done by the Qataris is, in one sense or another, government spending. Barakat has worked with Sheikh Saud's brother, Sheikh Hassan bin Mohammed bin Ali al-Thani, on building a collection of modern and contemporary Arab art, also destined for an eventual museum. At this point, Sheikh Hassan has probably the most comprehensive such collection in the world, with major pieces by Daoud Corm, Moustapha Farroukh, Omar Onsi, Saliba Douaihy, Chafic Abboud, Hussein Madi, and more. And that's just Lebanon's artistic pioneers. Sheikh Hassan also owns substantial collections of Iraqi, Egyptian, and Syrian art. "He has pieces you couldn't find anywhere else," says Barakat.

Sheikh Hassan's collection may be more specific than his brother's. But as eclectic as Sheikh Saud's interests are, he is, by all accounts, buying quality material in all fields. He has enlisted a team of curators and advisors, including major dealers and experts from major museums across Europe, to research collections, verify provenances, and generally assure quality.

"He's buying very rare, very unique pieces and that's what's important," says Barakat. "It's a good start. I believe that the money he is spending now, even if it looks to some tremendous and outrageous, is important. He is buying quality and the truth is he has a very fine collection. And you can't compete with the Qataris. They have an open budget." As to whether or not the new museums in Doha will attract visitors from the region, he says there is still much to be done in terms of establishing an institutional framework. "You still have to buy, restore, build, set the rules, and pay for them. It's not easy. But the ball has been played. You cannot go back now."

With Qatar's five museums in the works and the surge for contemporary art evident in the Sharjah Biennial - which Sheikh Sultan bin Mohammed al-Qasimi's daughter, Sheikha Hoor al-Qasimi, revamped last year - the arteries of the Arab world's cultural life may eventually relocate from the Cairo-Beirut-Baghdad axis further south to the Gulf, an odd predicament to many. But if these new arteries manage to show signs of life, if they pump new blood into what must be described as a fatally ailing organ, it can't but be a good thing for the region at large.

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