Guy Ullens has filed a complaint against his son Nicholas Ullens, who allegedly murdered his mother-in-law and Guy’s wife, influential collector Myriam “Mimi” Ullens, late last month. According to Brussels daily De Standard, lawyer Nathalie Buisseret filed a civil suit on Guy’s behalf on April 3 in Nivelles, Belgium. Legal proceedings are moving fast against Nicholas, who allegedly shot his stepmother multiple times in the head as she left the family home in Ohain, Belgium, with Guy on the morning of March 29. Guy was shot in the leg.
Guy and Myriam Ullens, who married in 1999, have together amassed a collection of around two thousand works, including many by contemporary Chinese artists. The couple launched the Ullens Contemporary Art Center in Beijing in 2008. Now known as the UCCA Center for Contemporary Art, the private museum has additional branches, in Beidaihe and Shanghai, and is considered one of China’s top contemporary art institutions. In 2017, the the museum has been sold to a group of Chinese investors led by private equity group Lunar Capital.
Nicholas’ siblings announced they are supporting their brother, telling Belgian media Het Belang van Limburg, “Mimi destroyed our family.” The murder of Myriam Ullens would have been financially motivated. At the time of the murder, the Flemish news site VRT reported that Nicholas and his stempother had been at odds “for years” over an inheritance issue, with Nicholas accusing Myriam of squandering the Ullens’ fortune after Guy suffered a cerebral vascular accident. “Mimi tormented the family,” one of Nicholas’s sisters told reporters. “She wanted everything for herself. We weren’t even allowed to see dad anymore,” Nicholas turned himself in to police shortly after the murder. A court on Monday extended his detention for a month.
