The fine art of big business

MOST OF US pay an occasional visit to an art gallery or museum as a pleasant diversion from the routines of daily life. We admire the displays and tend to forget that the world of art is also big business.

Take a walk around Central and you cannot fail to notice the plethora of outlets selling artworks and antiques from across Asia. Paintings and ancient maps, ceramics, tapestries, ornate carpets, porcelain, sculptures and other objets d'art are on show to attract the casual shopper and the avid collector alike.

The arts business in Hong Kong is booming, and this is partly due to Sotheby's Asia, which now employs 40 people locally and another 40 across the region.

As managing director for China and Southeast Asia, Henry Howard-Sneyd has led Hong Kong's premier fine-arts auction house since 2000. It is a role he could never have foreseen when he originally opted to study biochemistry at Oxford University.

'I remember being supervised one day by a brilliant professor who was trying to explain some obscure scientific theory to me. I couldn't understand a word of it. I realised then that I was in the wrong field and so, in my final year, I switched to art history,' Mr Howard-Sneyd said.

His decision to switch to art was facilitated by his family's background in the arts business.

'Art had always been a hobby of mine and I loved my final year at university. My fellow students thought I was a dreadful swot as I went to lectures because I was fascinated [by arts],' Mr Howard-Sneyd said.