For the businessman and museum creator named among the world’s top 200 collectors ARTnews last year, Nanjing-based Wu Tiejun is remarkably cautious. He never gave an interview about his collection and refused to give a picture of it along with this questionnaire.
Wu prefers to focus on the Nanjing museum, which he founded in 2017 through his real estate development company Deji Group. The Deji Art Museum is located on the eighth floor of the group’s large office and luxury shopping complex, Deji Plaza II. A second location, designed by architect Kengo Kuma, is planned for 2026 near the base of Mount Zijin to the east of the city. With more than 10,000 works and counting, the museum’s collection ranges from ancient Chinese jade and earthenware from the Neolithic period to Beeple’s futuristic video sculpture. S.2122 (2023), purchased at last year’s Art Basel Hong Kong.
Wu began his personal collecting journey 30 years ago with his enthusiasm for Chinese antiquity and Buddhist sculpture, which has roots in his childhood in Nanjing, the ancient capital of China. The Deji Art Museum’s collection reflects Wu’s early vision, representing all major categories of Chinese art, with a focus on classical local painters. But the museum is also building large holdings of modern and contemporary art from the likes of Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso, Georgia O’Keeffe, Yayoi Kusama and David Hockney, led by major curatorial themes. The subject of his latest exhibition, for example, is a 300-year-old flower arrangement (Nothing Yet About Dead Natureuntil March 31).