Gen Z is on the tip of every industry’s tongue, and the art world is no exception.
Born between the mid-1990s and early 2010s, this generation has firmly entered adulthood—and the collectors among them are making their mark. According to the 2025 Art Basel & UBS Survey of Global Collecting, Gen Z represents nearly a fifth of active collectors globally.
Artsy spoke with five young collectors to learn what drives them, what they’re building, and how they see the art world shifting in real time.
Patrick Finnegan wants to help create the trends of tomorrow
At 29, venture capitalist Patrick Finnegan may know early-stage business bets—but his collecting is guided less by numbers than by feeling.
“I connect with art very emotionally,” he said. “While I do think like a value investor, art for me is ultimately about living with and sharing beautiful stories—seeing the world through someone else’s perspective.”
Finnegan began collecting seriously six years ago, introduced to emerging artists through friends. He now works closely with celebrity advisor Ralph DeLuca, known for advising film stars and directors, alongside Instagram, which he uses to discover new artists. Many of his recent acquisitions reflect a growing interest in abstraction by emerging women artists, including Caroline Absher, Pauline Rintsch, Jo Messer, and Thalita Hamaoui.
Asked how he thinks Gen Z is changing the art world, Finnegan doesn’t hesitate: “We’re fearless. We don’t just follow the herd—we spot trends early and, in many cases, help create them.”
Matilda Liu is building community through collecting
Since moving to London in 2016 to study curation and art business, California-born collector Matilda Liu’s collecting practice has grown through genuine connection.
With close ties to British and American galleries, her collection spans emerging artists such as Gus Monday and established blue-chip names, including Antony Gormley.
Now in her late twenties, she founded Meeting Point Projects, which hosts supper clubs and exhibitions that bring people into creative conversations.
“Increasingly, I think younger collectors are motivated by participation within cultural ecosystems rather than by auction visibility alone,” she explained. “Luxury today is less about brand names and objects as trophies, and more about taste, value systems, and community.”
Abby Smidt collects across generations
Bicoastal collector Abby Smidt isn’t afraid to embrace the past. She’s drawn to artists of the 1960s, especially those active in Southern California’s Light and Space movement, who often played with natural or artificial light through sculpture and installation. “I’m just fascinated with the quality of light and the colors that emerge,” she said.
Her collecting follows in the footsteps of her parents, Eric and Susan, prominent collectors of Abstract Expressionism. Though she grew up around art, Smidt traces her obsession back to an internship at LACMA during a James Turrell retrospective.
Her focus has since expanded to the movement’s often-overlooked women artists, including Mary Corse and Helen Pashgian.
At 27, Smidt has also built close relationships with the aforementioned artists, who are working well into their 80s and 90s. “They’re all still on this beautiful trajectory,” she mused. “I feel like I’m collecting alongside their career[s].”
Tia Tanna is rejecting old hierarchies
Museumgoers may already be familiar with works from the Tia Collection, if not with the eponymous young collector herself.
Founded by Tanna’s father when she was a child, the collection now facilitates 70 to 100 institutional loans each year, including for an upcoming show of Native American artists at Yorkshire Sculpture Park.
Now 25, Tanna began collecting through fashion photography before expanding into couture and contemporary art.
Recent acquisitions include work by Alia Ahmad, Issy Wood, Francesca Mollett, and Alvaro Barrington, alongside couture pieces—like a bridal look on loan to the Victoria and Albert Museum’s upcoming Schiaparelli exhibition.
Tanna lights up most when speaking about designers, who she says create “for the body as opposed to the canvas.”
Gen Z collectors, she believes, are “looking across disciplines—toward performance, photography, fashion, and textile—recognizing that art isn’t confined to a single category.”
Lukas Jakob is taking a digital-first approach
“I belong to a generation that lives between resilience and exhaustion,” said German collector Lukas Jakob, “[between] digital connectivity and social fragmentation.”
A municipal worker by day, the 28-year-old has built much of his collection online, spanning digital works to installations. He began collecting a decade ago with the acquisition of a tie by Katharina Grosse, purchased with his first apprenticeship paycheck.
Today, Jakob dedicates about a third of his income to collecting. Based in the southwest German city of Freiburg, located near France and Switzerland, he stays deeply engaged with all three art scenes.
“I don’t buy for my living room,” he said. Instead, he prioritizes research and exhibiting, such as the collection show “Anti Heroes” at the Villa Merkel in Esslingen, Germany, which is now open. One highlight is Thomas Liu Le Lann’s 7-meter sculpture Shion (2021) from his “Soft Heroes” series, an acquisition that helped to inspire Jakob’s fascination with today’s antiheroes—“not triumphant, but ambivalent, overwhelmed, and multifaceted.”
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