Spear’s Review

Olyvia Kwok, founder of Bruton + Co, has spent over two decades in the art world, building a versatile career as a dealer, investor and adviser. Born in Beijing and raised between Hong Kong and the UK, she began working in finance before launching her first gallery in London at the age of 23, where she played a key role in bringing Chinese contemporary art to a UK audience.

Her first steps into the art world began when she bought a Chinese scroll painting at auction and ‘had a hunch that it had great potential’. Kwok was proven right when the painting later sold for five times what she’d paid for it. 

Her advice to other eager art connoisseurs looking to enter the industry: don’t be afraid of making mistakes. ‘I’ve made every single mistake that one could make and come through it,’ she has told Spear’s. ‘But it’s not about how many mistakes you’ve made; it’s about whether you repeat them.’