Top 200 Collectors

The four Kwee brothers—Kwee Liong Keng, Kwee Liong Tek, Kwee Liong Seen, and Kwee Liong Phing—are the second generation to run Singapore’s Pontiac Land Group, which was founded by their father Henry Kwee, who immigrated from Indonesia to Singapore in 1958. One of the richest families in Asia, Forbes estimated their net worth to be around $5.6 billion, as of October 2022.

The Pontiac Land Group, chaired by Kwee Liong Tek, with Kwee Liong Keng serving as managing director, owns several real estate developments in Singapore, Sydney, the Maldives, and New York. The firm is responsible for two major integrated developments: Millenia Singapore and the Fari Islands in the Maldives, both of which include a location of the Ritz-Carlton hotel. The Millenia Singapore development also includes a sculpture by Roy Lichtenstein on its grounds, which were designed in collaboration with Pritzker Prize–winning architect Kevin Roche in the ’90s. They have reportedly commissioned James Turrell to design work for the water villas in the Maldives property.

Other luxury hotels in the portfolio include the Capella Singapore, the Capella Sydney, the Conrad Centennial Singapore, and the Regent Singapore. And two of these hotel developments in Singapore also include soaring commercial skyscrapers, Millenia Tower and Centennial Tower. On the residential front, Pontiac Land operates the Colonnade condominiums in Singapore, which was designed by Paul Rudolph, as well as 53 West 53, the soaring tower next to the Museum of Modern Art in New York that was designed by starchitect Jean Nouvel. (An amenity of the residence is perpetual benefactor membership at MoMA.)

On the collecting front, the Kwee brothers focus on modern and contemporary art, as well as Chinese ink works. While not too much about their collection is known, their holdings include pieces by Lichtenstein, Frank Stella, Yayoi Kusama, James Rosenquist, and Ju Ming.