This is the second part of Modern Painters's list of the "50 Most Exciting Collectors Under 50" (for Part I, click here). To see an illustrated gallery of the figures listed here, with their descriptions, click on the slide show. 

Mohammed Afkhami
Dubai/New York
Managing partner of MA Partners dmcc, a commodities derivatives consultancy based in the Middle East, Afkhami also serves as an adviser on capital placement to several of the largest global alternative investment firms. He collects international contemporary art, in particular Middle Eastern art, and is a founding member of the British Museum’s Middle East and North African art acquisition committee.

Laura and John Arnold
Houston
Recently retired founder of the Centaurus Advisors hedge fund and self-made billionaire, John Arnold, the “king of natural gas,” and his wife, Laura, are committed philanthropists and art collectors. The couple live in a Cubist-inspired house designed by New York architect Alexander Gorlin and collect predominantly modern and contemporary art. Inspired by Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, they have pledged to give away half of their wealth over the course of their lifetime.

Haro Cumbusyan and Bilge Ogut-Cumbusyan
London/Istanbul
“I think a collection should be worth more than the sum of its parts. It should put the artworks into context, reveal unexpected relationships, or allow for surprising new readings,” says Haro Cumbusyan. He and his wife, Bilge, collect mainly video, film, and new media. Because both of them work with technology in their professional lives — Bilge as an investment consultant in technology, media, and telecommunications; Haro as a management consultant — they feel very comfortable with “emerging technologies and connecting cables,” as they put it. Focusing their collection on moving images provided them the opportunity to acquire artworks on a modest budget.

“Everything goes back to art institutions: Bilge and I started dating at the Guggenheim and got engaged at the Whitney,” recounts Haro. Their interest in art institutions motivated the two to open Collectorspace, a nonprofit venue in Istanbul dedicated to making works in private collections publicly available in exhibitions. Says Haro, “For an artwork to be relevant, it should enter the public consciousness.”

Hilary Hatch-Rubenstein
New York
A psychoanalyst by trade and a chairman of the Junior Associates at MoMA, Hatch-Rubenstein has an appetite for art influenced by her parents’ longtime involvement with the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Her first individual purchase, at the age of 15, was an Andy Warhol print of Greta Garbo. Since then her collection has grown to include artists such as Yayoi Kusama, Jim Lambie, Nick Relph and Oliver Payne, Franz West, Tomma Abts, and Mark Leckey.