The publication of The Sunday Times Rich List, the annual rankings of the wealthiest people based in the UK, has revealed the shifting fortunes of many of the nation’s key art world figures. All figures are estimated by a team of researchers and journalists who rank the 350 richest people according to a “calculation of their overall wealth”.
The highest-ranking art world individual is Leonard Blavatnik at number two, with an estimated fortune of £29.246bn derived from investment, music and media (Ukraine-born Blavatnik’s wealth continues to increase; last year, he was worth £28.625bn and was at number three. Crucially he made his fortune in the aluminium and oil business in the 1990s).
Blavatnik has sponsored a plethora of art projects and institutions in the UK, including the Courtauld Gallery in London (£10m; Blavatnik Fine Rooms) and Tate Modern’s extension (more than £50m; Blavatnik Building) which opened in 2016. He has also backed the Lightroom digital art experience based at King’s Cross in London.
The National Portrait Gallery in London also recently accepted a £10m gift towards its Inspiring People project from the foundation established by Blavatnik. According to The Washington Post, Blavatnik was among a group of business leaders who urged New York City’s mayor Eric Adams in April to send police to disperse pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University.
Blavatnik, through a spokeswoman, said he did not “participate in a conversation about private investigators [who were allegedly asked to step in] and is unaware of discussions related to that subject”. The spokeswoman told The Washington Post that other people on a related Zoom call to Adams said things Blavatnik, a Columbia alumnus, “did not weigh in on or agree with”.
Other high-profile art world entries on the list include the collectors Poju and Anita Zabludowicz at number 115 (£1.495bn; unchanged from last year). The Zabludowicz couple started collecting in 1994, amassing more than 8,000 works by 600 artists. Last year, they closed their gallery space in north London. In 2021, 25 artists “deauthored” their artworks in the Zabludowiczs’ collection because of the London couple’s links with Israel, according to The Sunday Times.
Another art philanthropist, Denise Coates, founder of the online gambling company Bet365, is at number 20 (£7.467bn, slipping down from 2023, when her value was estimated at £8.795bn). She funded the eponymous Denise Coates Exhibition Galleries at the Courtauld Gallery in London.
The Sunday Times reports that Coates’s online betting Goliath chalked up a £72.6m loss, partly as a result of high pay, investment costs and charitable giving. Last month, however, Bet365 was fined £582,120 for anti-money laundering and social responsibility failures at its online business. Another philanthropist, Hans Rausing of the Tetra Pak dynasty, came in at number 16 (£9.188bn); along with his late wife Julia Rausing, he has donated to the Royal Academy of Arts and National Gallery in London, among other institutions.
Elisabeth Murdoch, the daughter of the media tycoon Rupert Murdoch and founder of philanthropic organisation the Freelands Foundation, is worth £1.2bn and sits at number 143. Meanwhile the artist Damien Hirst, who appeared on the 2020 Rich List with an estimated wealth of £315m at number 409, is not on this year’s list.
The Sunday Times explains how the list was compiled, saying: “The compilers of the Rich List measure identifiable wealth, whether land, property, racehorses, art or significant shares in publicly quoted companies. We exclude bank accounts to which we have no access and small shareholdings in a private equity portfolio. The actual size of their fortunes may be much larger than our conservative figures.”
The report adds: “Some names are missing and more may soon be because this year’s edition records the largest fall in the billionaire count in the guide’s 36-year history, from a peak of 177 in 2022 to 165 this year.”