Top 200 Collectors

Eugenio López Alonso, the sole heir to the Jumex fruit-juice fortune, is known as an arts patron whose foundation underwrites contemporary art exhibitions in Mexico, courses in Latin American art at colleges and art schools in the United States, and programs at American museums focusing on the same area. He began collecting in earnest in the mid-1990s, eventually staging shows of his buys at a space on the outskirts of Mexico City, on the grounds of a Jumex juice plant. He now owns a 3,000-work collection that includes pieces by Doug Aitken, Olafur Eliasson, and Gabriel Orozco, some of which are often loaned to exhibitions around the world or on view at the Museo Jumex, a David Chipperfield–designed museum in the Polanco neighborhood of Mexico City that Lopez opened in 2013.

Lopez also has hands-on experience as a commercial art dealer. In 1993, with a partner, he opened Chac Mool Gallery in West Hollywood, California, and ran it until 2006, when he became a board member at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. He is currently vice chair of MOCA’s board. He regularly stages blockbuster exhibitions at his Museo Jumex. The 2019 program at the museum brought two shows with big loans and even bigger artworks: a two-artist exhibition of Jeff Koons and Marcel Duchamp organized by Massimiliano Gioni, the artistic director of the New Museum in New York (whose board López Alonso also sits on), and a James Turrell survey with new works by the storied Light and Space artist.