Tatler’s Guide to Building Your Own Museum

You see it in the fevered bidding at Christie’s, Sotheby’s, Bonhams, and Phillips. It’s palpable in the sprint to pick up the choicest seven- and eight-figure works at Art Basel Miami Beach (an acquisitive frenzy known as “Billionaires’ Black Friday”). Today, no ultra-high-net-worth individual worth their salt—or their Forbes rich list position—would be without an extensive collection of trophy art.

The competition for the most sought-after pieces is fierce, but for the winners, the question remains: how best to display the spoils of victory? It would be a shame to stash the stuff in bonded storage or hang it in one of your homes. Gazing with cat-that-got-the-cream satisfaction upon hard-won booty from Picasso, Richter, Koons, Freud, Hockney, Hirst, Bacon, and Basquiat, more and more collectors are coming to the conclusion that their museum-quality art deserves to be housed... in a museum.

There’s always the option of donating a collection or part thereof to an existing institution—most