The Next-Gen Collectors: Linda Du

For Linda Du, art is a ‘utility investment’. In economics – a field in which the collector, entrepreneur and investor is fluent – utility refers to total satisfaction or joy derived from consuming a product; it is a nonmonetary value metric. A worthwhile investment, therefore, doesn’t necessarily translate to positive fiscal returns (a rare case in art, anyway) – but is measured in happiness.

Du herself is currently the CEO and cofounder of a fintech startup which provides AI-powered financial planning – part of this, she explains, aims to “help people to reimagine their relationships with money, and not to be scared of investing in utility items”. Throughout our conversation, she returns repeatedly to the notion of utility, and of ‘happiness value’, which seems to lie at the heart of her collecting strategy.

While Du grew up surrounded by the museums and galleries of London, her parents were first-generation immigrants who moved to the UK in the 1990s following China’s Cultural Revolution, where art had been heavily state-controlled. “I grew up extremely aware of the value of artistic expression, because that was something that my parents had lacked growing up,” she tells me.

Christine Ödlund, Fyra dimensioner av ett träsk-CH4, 2023, ink and watercolour on paper. Courtesy the artist and Linda Du

Du began collecting around six years ago, when she traded the largely nomadic lifestyle of her twenties for permanent bases – first in Dubai, then in London and Berlin, the cities between which she now splits her time. She purchased her first artwork in Johannesburg: a coffee-stained charcoal drawing by the South African artist Themba Khumalo, whom she met in the city. “I started buying from the people around me,” the collector says. “Both as a way to support them, but also to preserve memories of the places I have travelled.”

In the years since her initial acquisition, Du’s portfolio has broadened dramatically. She owns multiple pieces by the Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei, who grew up in exile during the Anti-Rightist political purge of 1957–59 and later survived secret detention in China. “I felt like I had a lot in common with him,” says Du. “In the end, he also moved to Berlin. I saw him once in Prenzlauer Berg, and it was so surreal – I was too starstruck to say hello. But then I bought a couple of pieces, because they relate to that conflict between Western and Chinese values.”

On her walls, drawings by Du’s favourite tattoo artist, Dima Melancholiac, and portraits by friends sit alongside Anish Kapoor silkscreen prints and Ai’s works, purchased from the online limited-editions platform Avant Arte. “My collection is very mixed,” she says. “For new discoveries, Instagram is a huge source for me – particularly for young and emerging artists, from whom I either buy online or through galleries. With bigger artists – blue chips – I typically buy prints and reproductions.” 

Themba Khumalo, Look at Us, 2019, coffee stain, charcoal and pastel on paper. Courtesy the artist and Linda Du

Du’s partner works in art logistics – which, she jokes, has yet to come in useful, since they live with the entirety of their collection. He is also a collector. “For our London apartment we had to come to a compromise,” she says. “We have similar tastes in most cases, but there was one set of artworks that caused some contention.” The work in question is a reproduction of Francis Bacon’s Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion (1944), which now hangs above Du’s bed. “He really does not like that,” she says with a laugh.

One of the collector’s most personal pieces was not purchased at all – instead, it is an installation of archive material constructed by Du herself. “During the Chinese Cultural Revolution of 1966–76, a lot of my family history was erased,” she explains. “My father grew up thinking that his predecessors were teachers, but a couple of years ago, when my grandmother passed away, he found a box of papers in her apartment containing old land deeds. It turned out that the family had previously been quite wealthy and owned a lot of land that was later taken over by the Communist government.”

Du saw an opportunity to preserve these documents in a unique manner: as an art installation. “I found a paper conservator in Berlin who was able to restore and mount them,” she says. “They contain beautifully handpainted Chinese calligraphy – I have covered an entire wall of my apartment with them.”

Anish Kapoor, Out of the Dark, 2023, silkscreen. Courtesy Avant Arte

On the other hand, the most expensive work Du owns is an ink and watercolour painting by the Swedish artist Christine Ödlund, whose practice straddles metaphysics, science and nature. This is no less precious to its owner. “When I bought this piece, I’d just left a four-year career in management consulting,” she says, “so with the signing bonus for my new job, I bought this piece. Its themes of renewal and springtime felt serendipitous with my new phase of life.”

Her words echo those of most of the young collectors I have interviewed. In her recent book NextGen Collectors and the Art Market (2026), journalist and market expert Georgina Adams suggests that the group are motivated much less by the prestige traditionally associated with owning art, and more by engagement with the themes and issues important to them. Du sums up this attitude by leaving me with a piece of advice: “If you invest in something that you can look back on and think about positively, then it’s worthwhile.”