Victor Pinchuk is "Mystery Art Buyer"

KIEV, Ukraine—Ukranian steel billionaire Victor Pinchuk is the "mystery buyer" behind the purchases of many contemporary masterpieces snapped up over the past two years, Bloomberg reports, saying the revelation "has provided the answer to one of the biggest mysteries in the art market." His vast collection includes seven works by Damien Hirst, two by Jeff Koons, and six by Andreas Gursky, among others. He also owns the first private museum of contemporary art in the former Soviet Union, the Pinchuk Art Center, and plans to open a larger museum in 2012. Pinchuk recently let Bloomberg television into his country house in Kiev's Koncha-Zaspa suburb to show paintings that almost no one knew he possessed, including Ilya Mashkov's 1912 Still Life With Flowers, sold in December 2005 for £2.14 million ($4.39 million), seven times its top estimate, and at that point the most expensive painting sold at a Russian auction.

"Pinchuk is probably the top player from the former Soviet Union on the international contemporary art market,'' said Oxana Bondarenko, head of the Victoria Art Foundation.