David Roberts is a multi- millionaire commercial property developer and is considered as one of the UK's most important art collectors.

Early life

David Ian Roberts came from a family who worked in shipbuilding in Greenock

Greenock

Greenock is a town and administrative centre in the Inverclyde council area in United Kingdom, and a former burgh within the historic county of Renfrewshire, located in the west central Lowlands of Scotland...

, Scotland

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

. He studied for a degree in land economy and then became a commercial property developer.

Art Collector

Roberts's collection began about 15 years ago, but has been seriously built up over the past 5 years. It now consists of more than 3,000 works, including pieces by Damien Hirst

Damien Hirst

Damien Steven Hirst is an English artist, entrepreneur and art collector. He is the most prominent member of the group known as the Young British Artists , who dominated the art scene in Britain during the 1990s. He is internationally renowned, and is reportedly Britain's richest living artist,...

,, Philip Harris

Philip Harris (artist)

Philip Harris won 1st prize in the National Portrait Gallery's 1993 BP Portrait Award for portrait painting with the painting 'Two Figures Lying in a Shallow Stream' generally considered to have been the most powerful and influential painting in the history of the competition...

, Tracey Emin

Tracey Emin

Tracey Karima Emin RA is a British artist of English and Turkish Cypriot origin. She is part of the group known as Britartists or YBAs ....

, Mona Hatoum

Mona Hatoum

Mona Hatoum is a video artist and installation artist of Palestinian origin, who lives in London.- Lebanon :...

, Grayson Perry

Grayson Perry

Grayson Perry is an English artist, known mainly for his ceramic vases and cross-dressing. Perry's vases have classical forms and are decorated in bright colours, depicting subjects at odds with their attractive appearance. There is a strong autobiographical element in his work, in which images of...

, Jake & Dinos Chapman, Sir Peter Blake, Louise Bourgeois

Louise Bourgeois

Louise Joséphine Bourgeois , was a renowned French-American artist and sculptor, best known for her contributions to both modern and contemporary art, and for her spider structures, titled Maman, which resulted in her being nicknamed the Spiderwoman...

, Stuckists

Stuckism

Stuckism is an international art movement founded in 1999 by Billy Childish and Charles Thomson to promote figurative painting in opposition to conceptual art...

 Stella Vine

Stella Vine

Stella Vine is an English artist, who lives and works in London. Her work is figurative painting with subject matter drawn from either her personal life of family, friends and school, or rock stars, royalty and celebrities.After a difficult relationship with her stepfather, she left home and in...

 and Charles Thomson

Charles Thomson (artist)

Charles Thomson is an English artist, painter, poet and photographer. In the early 1980s he was a member of The Medway Poets. In 1999 he named and co-founded the Stuckists art movement with Billy Childish. He has curated Stuckist shows, organised demonstrations against the Turner Prize, run an art...

, Gary Hume

Gary Hume

Gary Stewart Hume is an English artist. His work is strongly identified with the YBA artists who came to prominence in the early-1990s. In 1996, Hume was nominated for the Turner Prize, but lost out to Douglas Gordon. Hume was elected a Royal Academician in 2001.-Life and work:Hume was born in...

, Stuart Semple

Stuart Semple

Stuart Semple is a contemporary British artist and curator, based in London and Dorset. Semple's practice addresses ideas sparked by immersion in popular culture and combines contemporary figurative painting with pop art.-Life and career:...

, Anselm Kiefer

Anselm Kiefer

Anselm Kiefer is a German painter and sculptor. He studied with Joseph Beuys and Peter Dreher during the 1970s. His works incorporate materials such as straw, ash, clay, lead, and shellac...

 and Marc Quinn

Marc Quinn

Marc Quinn is a British artist and part of the group known as Britartists or YBAs . He is known for Alison Lapper Pregnant , Self , and Garden .He is one of the Young British...

.

David Roberts Foundation

In 2008, Roberts launched the first part of the David Roberts Arts Foundation to benefit young curators and artists, situated at 111 Great Titchfield Street in Fitzrovia

Fitzrovia

Fitzrovia is a neighbourhood in central London, near London's West End lying partly in the London Borough of Camden and partly in the City of Westminster ; and situated between Marylebone and Bloomsbury and north of Soho. It is characterised by its mixed-use of residential, business, retail,...

. Talking to the Evening Standard, Roberts said he had realised during the construction period that the space would be too small: "There's a piece by Mona Hatoum I would like to have shown but we physically couldn't get it in." He therefore acquired a 12000 sq ft (1,114.8 m²) warehouse in Camden

Camden Town

-Economy:In recent years, entertainment-related businesses and a Holiday Inn have moved into the area. A number of retail and food chain outlets have replaced independent shops driven out by high rents and redevelopment. Restaurants have thrived, with the variety of culinary traditions found in...

which he is transforming into a second gallery space and head quarters for his new philanthropic Foundation, to benefit curators and artists.

External links

• David Roberts Art Foundation official website