Their names are Gennady Timchenko, Vladimir Potanin, Pyotr Olegovich Aven or Roman Abramovich: These Russian oligarchs, considered friends of Russian President Vladimir Putin, are on the West’s list of sanctions as a reaction to Russia’s war on Ukraine.
Among the world’s approximately 2,200 billionaires, 4% of them are Russian, while 2% of the super-rich with assets of more than $50 million in 2020 are also from the country, according to the latest art market report by Art Basel and the UBS bank.
Demonstrators gathered outside the Russian Embassy in London, calling for sanctions against Russian oligarchs
Having become rich after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s, they were soon welcome guests at the art fairs in Basel, Tokyo and New York. Auction houses also prized them as potential buyers, knowing that expensive trophy art was a way for these millionaires to display their wealth.
Oligarchs withdraw from museum boards of trustees
Now, some of their foreign assets are frozen. In London, for example, FC Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich had to relinquish control of his club.
Olegovich Aven, head of the Alfa Group, Russia’s largest commercial bank, lost his place on the board of London’s Royal Academy. The institution rejected a donation from Aven for the Academy’s ongoing Francis Bacon exhibition.
Vladimir Potanin stepped down from the Guggenheim Museum’s board of trustees. The privately financed New York city museum will have to find a way to compensate for the loss of the major benefactor’s contributions.
Beyond the Chelsea football league, billionaire Roman Abramovich is a major art collector
With their millions, Russia’s oligarchs have gained influence in the art world and shaped the global art market for years.
For example, Abramovich wrote art market history by buying in 2008, a few months before Lehman Brothers went bankrupt, a triptych by Francis Bacon at Sotheby’s for the then record price of $86.3 million (€78.3 million) —…