Some celebrities have accumulated vast collections of art of museum-grade quality. For their fans, celebrities’ personal artistic preferences serve as an insight into their aesthetic and values that seem much more genuine than their carefully curated media presence. Want to find out who has the largest private collection of photographs from the 20th century? Read on to learn more about celebrities who double as outstanding art collectors.
1. Madonna: The Pop Legend and Art Collector
The pop legend Madonna is an avid art collector who admits that most of her works are directly inspired by one work or another. She began collecting in 1987, and, contrary to the way most art lovers launch their collections, made a substantial first purchase. The first work in Madonna’s collection was a painting by Fernand Leger, worth $1 million.
Madonna also has one of the largest private collections of paintings by Tamara de Lempicka, the provocative Art Deco artist, whose public image was remarkably similar to that of Madonna. Lempicka was one of the first celebrities in a present-day sense who constructed her public image carefully, tailoring it to her art. Similarly provocative and grandiose, the painter left behind more myths than factual life stories. Another of Madonna’s favorites is Frida Kahlo, with her collection including two of her legendary self-portraits, Self-Portrait with Monkey and My Birth.
In her early years as a performer, Madonna was in a relationship with Jean-Michel Basquiat, who was also just launching his career. After their emotional breakup, he forced Madonna to return all the paintings he had given her and painted them black.
2. Leonardo DiCaprio
According to Leonardo DiCaprio’s parents, they chose the name for their son while standing next to one of the most celebrated paintings by Leonardo da Vinci, The Annunciation, kept at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. Perhaps due to these circumstances, the actor has a longstanding love for art and a vast and rather eclectic personal selection of it. His collection includes works by Frank Stella, Takashi Murakami, Pablo Picasso, and Jean-Michel Basquiat, who is particularly loved by many famous art collectors. He also owns works by Banksy, Salvador Dali, and a collection of fossils, including a dinosaur skeleton.
A particularly important segment of Leonardo DiCaprio’s collection is dedicated to art related to environmental causes. DiCaprio, who is famous for being a sustainability advocate, resonates with artists who reflect on the ecological and political issues of their time. One of the most famous works in his collection is Banksy’s Trolley Hunters—an oil painting depicting a group of cavemen hunting for empty shopping carts.
3. Elton John
According to his own memoir Me, Elton John had a long-standing shopping addiction that included, among many things, an obsession with buying art. According to his collection’s curators, there were periods when the legendary artists bought new art objects almost every day. He collected paintings, sculptures, glass objects, Art Nouveau and Art Deco glass pieces, prints, and countless examples of contemporary art, often purchased directly from the artists’ studios. According to the collector himself, he has neither strategy nor investment plans, and simply collects things he likes. Although he can afford almost any work of art that strikes him, he does not stick to shocking price tags, and claims he bought some of his favorite works for just $150.
After getting sober in the early 1990s, Elton John mostly focused on collecting photography, amassing the largest private collection of 20th-century works in the world. He explained that after clearing his mind, he was able to see and recognize the medium anew, finally noticing its expressive depth and complexity. Again, his connections and status became useful, as he was able to access pieces unavailable to most collectors or buy entire exhibitions of works he liked, just as he did with a 149-piece installation Thanksgiving, by Nan Goldin in 1999.
One of the works later became the center of a highly controversial obscenity case after its display at the Saatchi Gallery in London in 2007. Around the same time, Elton John attended a fundraising dinner arranged by New York’s New Museum. Sitting next to Cindy Sherman, he complained that although he liked her work, it rarely reached markets where he could buy it. Sherman, who wanted to buy a new house at the time, instantly suggested selling him a collection of her prints.
4. David Bowie
For a while, David Bowie had an interest in Andy Warhol’s art and persona, but their 1971 meeting did not go well. Warhol hated the eponymous song Bowie wrote about him, and generally had no idea who the British artist was, as Bowie’s fame had not yet reached the US. David Bowie, in his turn, was unsettled and intrigued by Warhol’s appearance. With his strange wig and layers of white makeup on his face, the Pop artist looked more like a reptile than a human. In 1996, David Bowie was invited to play Warhol in the famous biopic film about Jean-Michel Basquiat.
Basquiat was, in fact, one of Bowie’s favorite artists. They most likely never met in person, but the admiration was mutual—Basquiat knew and loved Bowie’s music. In 1995, six years after Basquiat’s death from a heroin overdose, Bowie purchased his painting Air Power at a moment when prices that initially skyrocketed due to the artist’s untimely death, slightly dropped. Over the years, he accumulated a large collection that included not only Basquiat’s works but also those made by Tintoretto, Rubens, Egon Schiele, Meret Oppenheim, and Ernst Haeckel. After Bowie passed away in 2016, his family members sold most of the artworks from his collection. Bowie himself was a practicing artist who worked with painting and sculpture.
5. Beyonce & Jay-Z
The artistic duo accumulated a large collection of ultra-expensive modern and contemporary artworks. Just like with many other celebrity art collectors, they have a particular preference for Basquiat, owning several paintings made by him. In part, Jay-Z regards himself as an artist continuing Basquiat’s path of subverting and transforming modern culture, as expressed in several of his songs. Other famous artists in the couple’s collection are Damien Hirst, Andy Warhol, and Ed Ruscha.
Both Beyoncé and Jay-Z are known to directly reference artists and artworks in their musical and visual works. In 2018, the couple filmed a music video in the Louvre with famous masterpieces like the Mona Lisa and The Raft of the Medusa acting as the performers’ backdrop. The video, although widely approved, also struck some controversy, with critics accusing the couple of exploiting and disrespecting art.
6. Jack Nicholson
According to some sources, the art collection of the legendary actor was estimated at at least $150 million. Nicholson began collecting in the 1960s, focusing on quality over quantity. His collection is rather small compared to some, but it is limited to the most remarkable pieces.
Nicholson’s art taste is rather conventional for a man of his age, time, and status. During the height of his career, he preferred the safe but impressive options, collecting the works of great 20th-century masters like Matisse, Picasso, Modigliani, and Rodin. Surprisingly, he is also a fan of Tamara de Lempicka and owns several of her paintings.
7. Oprah Winfrey
Legendary TV host Oprah Winfrey has a vast collection of art with a focus on works by African and African American artists. One of her favorite artists is Kerry James Marshall, an Alabama-born painter and art professor best known for his powerful depictions of Black subjects. Winfrey also has a keen interest in decorative arts and furniture. Part of her collection was sold in 2015 to support Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy Foundation for Girls, an educational institution for young women in South Africa.
Oprah was a former owner of Gustav Klimt’s Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer II, which has a difficult history. It was one of the works stolen by the Nazis from the Vienna-based Jewish Bloch-Bauer family during World War II. In 2006, the painting was returned to its rightful owners, who sold it to Winfrey for $88 million. In 2016, she sold it for $150 million to an unidentified Chinese buyer.
