Just a couple of years ago, collecting art used to be a hobby for the country’s elite and the super rich only. But now, the passion is spreading among China’s rapidly growing affluent middle class. Hordes of art aficionados go shopping at the multiple industry fairs in China, such as the ART021 Shanghai Contemporary Art Fair, Art Beijing, the China International Gallery Exposition, or the Shanghai West Bund Art & Design.

At the same time, big-ticket items are flying off the shelves, with Chinese billionaires flexing their muscles in the international art market and scooping up high-priced artworks.

In November, Monet's “Grainstack” fetched 81.4 million US dollars at Christie's in New York after a phone battle between a US and a Chinese bidder that was won by the American buyer. China’s richest man, Wanda Group Chairman Wang Jianlin, has also ventured into the art world. In 2013, Wang bought (and overpaid for) a Picasso painting of his children, Claude and Paloma, for 28.2 million US dollars at Christie’s.

Liu Yiqian and Wang Wei are one of Asia’s most world-renowned collecting power couples, and purchased a 45 million-US dollar Tibetan tapestry commissioned by a Ming emperor at Christie’s Hong Kong in 2014.

These increasingly powerful Chinese buyers are making their mark on the global art world, and also starting to pursue memberships in powerful art organizations, sponsoring new platforms for exchange, setting up foundations, and building new museums to house their collections.

31-year-old David Chau for example co-founded the ART021 art fair in Shanghai, billionaire Adrian Cheng founded the K11 Art Foundation, while Alan Lau sits on the board of the non-profit art space Para Site in Hong Kong.

One of China’s most famous collectors however is the chairman of Sunline Group, Liu Yiqian, a former taxi driver-turned billionaire art collector who owns the two Long Museums in Shanghai, mostly buying masterpieces in the impressionist, post-war and contemporary categories. He made headlines when he purchased Modigliani’s “Nu Couché” (1917-18) for more than 170 million US dollars in 2015.