People become art collectors for many different reasons. Some do it for investment purposes, others buy something that appeals to their aesthetic preferences. And there are those who do it for sentimental reasons, looking to capture something from the past. Yet, apart from all having an appreciation of art in its different genres, another thing seems to connect collectors in Macau: very few of them like to be referred to as actual art collectors. Instead, they think of themselves as time-travellers, aiming to catch a piece history with their bare hands or get a glimpse into the future through the eyes and visions of others. This month, CLOSER speaks to four Macau-based individuals – all with different tastes, occupations and backgrounds, but all passionate about art – and takes a tour inside their houses and studios to hear the stories behind their collections.
Frederico Rato
Portugal, Lawyer
Frederico Rato’s collection started to increase when he arrived in Macau, 32 years ago.
“I had more time and money to do so here,” he recalls, sitting on his sofa, in the middle of the living room, where one can see more clearly all the surrounding pieces of art.
The 68-year-old lawyer has a large collection spread throughout his houses in Portugal and in Macau, as well as in his office. At his home in Macau, there are no empty spaces, with paintings, pottery, prints and maps everywhere, even on the floor.
“People sometimes don’t like to see paintings on the floor, but I do. Art pieces can be everywhere.”
Some items are still stored in a closet, due to lack of space. His collection has a predominant theme: Macau.
“It is a very beautiful city, filled with Portuguese and Chinese soul,” he says, adding: “The Portuguese presence for 450 years has given Macau the very characteristic features we now know.”
Attracted by the passage of time and aiming to preserve it, most of what he owns are old prints from the territory, bought in Germany, England, Hong Kong and Portugal. Once in a while, someone asks for some of his pieces.
“They want to see them or to put them in an exhibition,” he explains. Mr Rato usually accepts. “The first mission of a work of art is to be seen. I’m very happy that others can see them.”
He doesn’t usually go to auctions to buy pieces for his collection.
“I don’t have much time, even though I know that you can get beautiful things at auctions,” he says.
Nowadays, there are also online auctions, but he has never bought anything in this way. “Once in a while, I bid for something, but I haven’t had success in my bids, maybe I need to be more generous.”
Instead, he usually prefers to buy at exhibitions.
“I go there and if I see something that appeals to me, I rehearse the buying act,” he says.
He certainly doesn’t consider himself to be a compulsive buyer and he nearly always discusses prices before buying.
“People say you don’t usually discuss the value of art, but I do. I respect the artistic expression of the author, but the work of art is for sale and it has a price, and that makes it negotiable,” says Mr Rato.
He has many favourite artists in Macau.
“I like Konstantin Bessmertny, he has been in Macau for 22 years, and since I had some involvment in that fact – which makes me happy – I’ve been following his work ever since,” he says, looking at the piece entitled Casanova, exhibited in the middle of his living room.
Locally based Mainland Chinese painter Mio Pang Fei is also one of his favourite artists.
“I have a very big painting in my house in Lisbon, which is representative of his work. I bought it 15 years ago.”
He also likes Kwok Woon, Joana Ling and André Carrilho.
“Today Carrilho is a worldwide reference for illustrations, drawings and caricatures. Many years ago I launched him at the Portuguese newspaper Ponto Final,” he recalls.
When he buys a work of art, he is not concerned about making money from it in the future.
“I don’t even know how much my works are really worth. Once, out of curiosity, I did try to find out the price of a Chinese painter [Liu Da Hong], because I had bought one painting from his initial phase and, ten years later, he started getting well known.”
His collection is not only limited to prints and maps from Macau and Asia. Pottery from the Society of Jesus is also a central theme.
“I have pieces from China and Japan,” he says. The items were mostly bought in antique shops, some in Macau. “When I buy, I usually ask advice from people and friends who are also collectors or merchants.”
There are also names in his collection that have no connection whatsoever to Macau or Asia, such as famous Portuguese artists Paula Rego, Ana Vidigal, Damião Porto and Nuno Barreto.
One day, when he has time, he hopes to be able to create a database with the names and details of all the works included in his collection.
“I know them mostly by memory, which is bad, because it fails sometimes. But I hope to one day have the time to systematize, classify and describe the pieces.”
Kit Thomson
England, Musician
More than just a collection, these pieces of art are a life story, reminding Kevin (Kit) Thomson of all the moments he and his wife have had together.
“When we were first married, we had very little money and Patricia’s grandma, who was very elderly, gave us a small sum of money to buy some furniture,” recalls Kit. “But before going to the furniture shop we went to a local art gallery, where we saw a picture. So, instead of buying furniture for our house, we bought a small Persian rug and a nice picture. We’re as bad as each other, we’re incorrigible,” he says, smiling.
That was 40 years ago, and since then, he and his wife have been recording their life memories through the art pieces they collect. “It’s a very visual biography.”
Thomson is a professional musician and also the Master of Moon Chun Memorial College at the University of Macau, where he now lives. For each of his life phases, he can identify a piece of art. For instance, during the years in which he worked at the University of Salford as director of the music department, he highlights Helen Bradley’s Fred Waverley’s Concert Party and Park Sunday Afternoon around a Bandstand.
Most of the pieces in his collection were chosen by him and his wife together, but there are some exceptions. In Macau, they bought a painting by Francesco Lietti called Simmering Water.
“This Italian piece was very much her choice. I loved the work of the artist, more than that particular piece – he does some wonderful townscapes of Hong Kong and Macau and I would have chosen one of those – but Patricia has a passion for the sea,” he says.
In Macau, he hopes to acquire more works by local artists.
“There are great artists here. There’s Konstantin Bessmertny, and I was hoping he would do something for us. Also, there is Dennis Murrel, who has worked with our students and there’s the possibility that he might donate some of his work to the college,” he highlights. And then there is “the Renaissance man”, Carlos Marreiros, whose work he truly appreciates. “He is wonderful, I particularly like his line drawings.”
Reflecting on his collection overall, spread throughout Macau and the UK, he highlights Damien Hirst’s Butterflies Painting as one of his favourites. When he was chairman of the Royal Western England Academy, he attended one of the auctions in which people donated works of art in aid of the institution. One of the pieces included was this painting.
“I put a bid in it. He was not quite so well known as he is today. I like what it stands for, it stands for helping a charity,” he says.
Usually, he and his wife buys pieces at art galleries but seldom at auctions.
“We get too passionate, so we tend not to do auctions, as we get too involved. It’s better for us to take time and think about it, go back to the gallery several times before we decide to purchase.”
And he doesn’t think of his purchase as a financial investment.
“It purely represents a particular period in our lives together. We like the artist and we like some particular work, sometimes you like the artist more than the art.”
In fact, he recalls the only time he asked for an evaluation of an art piece to assess its value, was when they found Patricia’s great, great grandparents daguerreotypes.
“We took them to Sotherby’s to be evaluated – he told us these were really interesting, but they were worth nothing.”
When the couple moved to Macau, they brought a few of the most transportable art pieces with them.
“It’s also part of our background, reminding us how we are together,” he says.
In fact, he brought one of his most treasured items to the territory, which is the Louis Vuitton Stokowski Travelling Conductor’s trunk, an important piece for any musician.
He doesn’t reject the idea of buying Chinese art, be it traditional or contemporary, but he hasn’t yet bought any pieces.
“The Chinese have a particular quality, they’re very creative actually, very innovative, they combine different idioms together and they are not afraid to experiment.”
Francisco Ricarte
Portugal, Architect
“I am not a collector, because collectors usually buy art to support artists – I’m not able to do that – or they want to do business,” notes Francisco Ricarte, after welcoming us into his home.
The Portuguese architect buys art simply because he loves it, and only when he relates to a certain piece.
“It is intellectually stimulating to look at a photograph or a painting. I never get tired of that,” he continues.
Before coming to Macau he already had connections to the art world in Lisbon. Not only was his former wife a painter herself, but he also had several artist friends.
“I was already buying art while I was still studying in college,” notes the 60-year-old.
His own life story can be divided into two artistic periods. In Portugal, he mostly bought prints, but once he arrived in Macau ten years ago, his preference moved towards photography.
“It is not easy to find things here, you need to know where to go. And there is a huge difference between the non-existent art market in Macau and a certain overpricing of the art market in Hong Kong, which makes everything harder,” he says.
Most of his collection comprises works from South Korean, Japanese, Portuguese or North-American artists, but there is nothing around, apart from one or two local pieces, that relates to Chinese art, contemporary or traditional.
“I have a great respect for Chinese art, but because I don’t really seem to understand it to the fullest, I am still afraid of buying it,” he says.
He usually buys online – directly from the artist when possible – at galleries and, occasionally, at exhibitions.
“I have some things from Macau – from photographers Carmo Correia and Lúcia Lemos – as well as a painting from Gigi Lee.”
Among his collection are names like Shoko Hashimoto and Miho Kajioka. On a tour around his house, he stops at South Korean photographer Doyeon Gwon.
“He usually works on used books. In this one, it seems the book is not damaged, but very used. I have a passion for books and reading, so I feel, looking at this one, that the books need to be sucked until the last drop,” he says, pointing at the picture that he bought online.
Occasionally, after buying a piece of art, he might try to get in touch with the artist.
“I have had some email exchanges, but nothing too personal,” he says.
And when he has the chance to meet the artists in person, he always tries to.
In Portugal, he is proud of having been able to buy a print from the famous Portuguese artist Vieira da Silva, which he has now given to his children.
“When I saw the print, signed by her, I was blown away. Usually, these are too expensive for me,” he says. “That’s why I’m not really a collector, collectors have a lot of money, they are investors. And this is not my intention,” insists Ricarte.
Ao Io Nam
China, Calligrapher
Originally from Zhongshan, China, Ao Io Nam is an artist, a collector and a shop owner, who came to Macau after the Cultural Revolution. As we enter his workshop, Mr Ao greets us as if he were inside his home. It is here that his memories from a past not so faraway, are stored: antiques from that turbulent time in China’s history.
Before we even have a chance to ask him a question, Ao launches into showing us several magazines from the late 1960s, used as propaganda during that period.
“I was in the Red Guard [a mass paramilitary social movement],” he admits.
His collection includes pins, a radio that still works, old newspapers, statues and posters.
“I started collecting 30 years ago,” he says.
Most of the things he has were found in flea markets, antique shops and even privately, through people he knows in Portugal, Spain, Hong Kong, Mainland China and, on occasion (but rarely), Macau.
His workshop is also open to the public as a shop, but only a few things are for sale.
“The things from the Cultural Revolution are not for sale, because once they are sold, they are gone.”
He has never lent his pieces for exhibitions, even though some have asked him a few times.
“These are a bit political,” he says, adding: “I prefer to keep them to myself.”
Yet, if the exhibitions were to take place overseas, he says he would feel more comfortable.
Taking us to a more secluded area where several items are stored, Mr Ao continues showing us magazines from that period, most of them wrapped in plastic to protect them from the passage of time. Some of the booklets are already damaged.
“It’s too humid [in Macau], it’s too difficult to handle.”
He admits he doesn’t usually show his pieces, due to the politics involved. But also – and foremost – because two family members died during the Cultural Revolution, making it hard for Mr Ao to talk openly about this period.
“That was a really chaotic era, I don’t want to talk about it.”
Everywhere we look around us are posters and statues of the founder of People’s Republic of China, Mao Zedong. Picking up one of the famous ‘Little Red Books’ – with sayings from the former leader – Ao says: “In the morning, we had to read this; at lunch, we read this; when you went to bed, you had to read this,” he says, pointing to the different versions spread out on the table.
Opening one of them and showing a stamp he says: “We had a kind of signature of where we had been. We were 15 or 16 year old teenagers, passionate about the Cultural Revolution. Every student was doing the same thing in a frenzy.”
He has copies of the Macau Daily newspaper from that time, which he managed to collect before they went in to the garbage.
“When a building was being demolished, I went there and took this stuff.”
Even though most of it dates back to the Cultural Revolution, Ao’s collection also includes other items. Passionate about the Han dynasty period, he has a number of pieces from that time.
“It’s a collection that’s more than 2,000 years old,” he says, showing some pieces like a knife, a Chinese phoenix and accessories: “They are already darkened from being under the earth [in tombs].”
This part of the collection is all duly catalogued, with drawings and a hand-written description by Mr Ao. The rest is not yet catalogued, which reminds him he needs to start doing that.
