'I Like Strong Lines, Powerful Pieces': A Look At The Japanese Billionaire Who Paid $110 Million For Basquiat

The art world was stunned when a painting by Jean-Michel Basquiat sold for $110.5 million, making it the most expensive painting by an American artist. But its buyer, Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa, said in a recent interview, "There’s nothing wrong with using the money that you earn to be daring and buy art that you love or that you think is beautiful."

Maezawa made his fortune with an online fashion site, Zozotown, which actually got its start from his mail order music business. Forbes dubbed him the "Harajuku Billionaire," noting in 2011 that he "goes with his gut in hiring, picking most of his 300 people not for any track record in online retail-after all, he didn’t have one himself-but for their energy, desire and most of all their up-to-the-minute looks and attitude. They tell him what people just like them are wearing in the right places, like the glitzy walk along Omotesando in Harajuku, so his buyers can snare the right deals."

This attitude seems to extend to his approach to art collecting. The NY Times described the frenzied May 18 auction for the 1982 Basquiat:

After the price sailed past the $60 million guaranteed minimum, Mr. Maezawa — who hadn’t gone into the sale with his own limit in mind — felt that the competitive bidding reinforced the work’s enormous value.

"I decided to go for it" Mr. Maezawa said in an interview at his home on Friday...

While he “didn’t expect the price to go that high,” Mr. Maezawa said his love for Basquiat runs deep — he paid the previous high price for the artist last year ($57.3 million). And he saw that others felt the same, including one other buyer willing to go the distance (later revealed to be the casino magnate Frank J. Fertitta III), since the two wound up in a bidding war.

“I learned that so many people wanted to have this piece of art so much,” Mr. Maezawa said. “I was sure that my eye was certain.”

, "Unlike some seasoned collectors who enlist advisers and curators to oversee their art buys, he said he prefers to shop alone, often online. 'I ask a gallery as soon as I find something nice on the Internet,' he said. Auction houses send him catalogs, and that is how he spotted the Basquiat."

After buying the work, Maezawa shared photos of the back of the painting, marveling, "you can see some of his footprints."

"For painting, I like strong lines, powerful pieces," Maezawa explained in his interview with the WSJ.

Last year, Maezawa bought another Basquiat for $57 million as well as a Picasso for $22 million. He hopes to open a museum in Chiba as well as to lend works from his collection, telling the Times, "I want to show beautiful things and share them with everyone... It would be a waste just to keep it all to myself."

When the $57 million Basquiat arrived in Japan, he exhibited it for his employees, who then Instagrammed it (of course):

He also has a sense of humor. A CNN profile noted, "Maezawa is a rarity in Japan: a billionaire who shuns suits and encourages everyone at his company to have fun. At an annual results presentation last month, Start Today CFO Koji Yanagisawa delivered the earnings report dressed as a mushroom, saying he was carrying on a tradition started by Maezawa in 2010. Maezawa, dressed in a stylish bomber jacket and graphic T-shirt, looked on with a playful smile on his face."

When the founder of CEO magazine asked Maezawa, via Twitter, if he was happy about his $110 million Basquiat purchase, the billionaire replied, "YES!I!!"