Collector Ole Faarup: ‘He could never really understand people who have the means to buy art but choose not to’

It’s fair to say that Ole Faarup made the most of his time living in New York in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Professionally, his roles included heading up the home furnishings department for Macy’s across a dozen stores. Then, in his spare time, he revelled in the art that the city had to offer.

Many a lunch hour was spent visiting the Museum of Modern Art. Faarup also frequented galleries in Chinatown and SoHo, as well as the restaurant and nightclub Max’s Kansas City, a famed hangout for creative types on Park Avenue South. He came across Andy Warhol there more than once.

‘I chatted with him a bit,’ Faarup recalled in later life. ‘It was mainly, you know, “Hello, how are you? Congratulations on your exhibition” — that sort of stuff.’ It’s worth adding, though, that the Dane was tentatively starting to acquire art at that time, and — through their brief conversations — Warhol convinced him ‘to buy things that are cutting-edge’.

Faarup took this advice to heart and, across five decades, put together a collection of such note that his home in Frederiksberg became a port of call for anyone in the contemporary art world who visited Denmark. In August, Christie’s staged a four-day exhibition of the collection at Kunsthal n in Copenhagen, which attracted 5,000 visitors.

It is a collection rich in work made by artists in the early part of their career — artists from across the globe, including Warhol’s friend Jean-Michel Basquiat and the renowned Swedish painter Karin Mamma Andersson. Faarup took an especial liking to the work that was coming out of London in the 1990s, and he acquired standout pieces by Peter Doig and Chris Ofili in particular.

He passed away in February this year, aged 90. As set out in his will, his collection is being offered for sale, with proceeds going to the newly established Ole Faarup Art Foundation, the primary purpose of which is to support younger artists (more on this below).

Works will be presented across three sales — the 20th/21st Century: London Evening Sale on 15 October 2025, followed by the Post-War and Contemporary Art Day Sale on 16 October, and from 8 to 21 October, Among the Artists: The Ole Faarup Collection Online Sale.

‘Ole had an incredibly keen eye for talent,’ says Morten Kroon, chairman of the Ole Faarup Art Foundation. ‘He frequently bought work by artists who would go on to become big names — well ahead of other collectors and museums.’

Faarup was born in Copenhagen in 1934. His father was a doctor, and the family hoped that young Ole would adopt the same profession. He duly started a medicine degree at university — only to realise that his interests lay elsewhere, so he switched to study business instead.

After graduation, he was hired by Georg Jensen, a Danish design firm with a focus on silverware, which transferred him to its office in New York. As already mentioned, it was there that his interest in art was stoked.

Upon returning to his homeland, he went on to take over the furniture retailer 3 Falke Møbler, which supplied hotels, offices and cruise ships. At the same time, he began collecting art in earnest. Initially, Faarup’s focus was on Danish artists, such as Per Kirkeby, but as 3 Falke Møbler grew ever more successful under his leadership, he was able to expand the scope of his collection.

‘His apartment was packed solid with paintings and sculptures,’ says Kroon. ‘Nothing was kept in the attic, everything was on view. Ole’s home was a unique space, where art and daily life seamlessly intertwined.’

That art included two masterpieces by Doig: Country Rock and Ski Jacket. The former offers a view — from what one assumes is a vehicle on the highway — of a roadside tunnel in Toronto. The tunnel has a rainbow painted around its mouth, and is set within a bank of rosy undergrowth, above which we see an expanse of spectral trees and a lavender sky. The painting is charged with the elusive sense of place, memory and reverie that defines Doig’s practice.

The same can be said about Ski Jacket — a picture of a ski slope flushed in auroral hues of pink, gold and blue. Tiny skiers are dotted among conifers and chalets, with richly textured snow veiling the scene. (A sister painting from the same year, also titled Ski Jacket, is part of the Tate collection.)

Faarup was fond of getting to know the artists whose work he collected, in some cases — as with Doig — calling them friends. He spoke often of his belief that good artworks have ‘soul’, and he enjoyed connecting with the people who generated it.

He visited London repeatedly in the 1990s, being struck by what he called its ‘exciting scene’. With the dealer Anthony Wilkinson as his guide, he went to myriad artists’ studios — meeting and purchasing work by Young British Artists (YBAs) such as Damien Hirst, Sarah Lucas, Tracey Emin and Gary Hume, as well as Doig and Ofili (who stood slightly outside that group).

Ofili’s Blossom was acquired soon after its completion — in 1997, a year before the painter became the first Black artist to win the Turner Prize. It depicts a poised and seductive female figure set amid towering foliage. She wears a diaphanous dress that billows in soft curves as she exposes her right breast. Composed from layers of oil paint, glitter, resin, map pins and elephant dung, Blossom is a visual tour de force.

‘Ole was as interested in the artist as he was in the art — and his collection was all the more personal for that,’ says Gitte Ørskou, director of the Moderna Museet in Stockholm, who knew Faarup well.

In rare cases, a desire to meet an artist had negative side-effects — such as the time Faarup visited the home of Ejler Bille, the ageing Danish member of CoBrA, and said that he had to drink coffee from a cup so dirty it surely had never been washed.

In the main, though, his encounters were positive. Around the turn of the millennium, he often travelled to Germany, where he was impressed by artists of the New Leipzig School, including Neo Rauch and Matthias Weischer. Even in his final years he was seeking out new talent, in places such as Romania.

‘Ole was an only child, and he never married or had his own children,’ Ørskou says. ‘As someone with little family, his art collection became his whole life. Collecting was a serious matter for him. It gave him so much enrichment that he could never really understand people who have the means to buy art but choose not to.’

Ørskou sits on the board of the Ole Faarup Art Foundation. It was established by the collector as a way of continuing to support younger artists after his death, and 100 per cent of the hammer price for lots sold in the upcoming sales will benefit the foundation.

It will, for example, assist artists from Denmark under the age of 50, when it comes to staging their debut exhibition at an institution abroad. (As per Faarup’s definition, Denmark includes Greenland and the Faroe Islands.)

The foundation will also buy work by artists of any nationality under the age of 50 and donate it to a Danish museum or public collection, following an application by the institution in question.

‘Ole always felt that museums were too slow, and not daring enough, when it came to promoting the work of the young,’ says Ørskou. ‘He saw his foundation, in part, as a way of righting that wrong.’

In other words, the activities of the foundation mark an exciting new stage in Faarup’s remarkable collecting journey.

Property from the Ole Faarup Collection will be on tour in Brussels (5-7 September 2025), Hong Kong (23 September) and New York (25-29 September). The pre-sale view takes place in London, 8-14 October. Explore Christie’s 20th/21st Century Art auctions