Asian collectors buying more Western art and setting sights higher as concerns over fakes rise and tastes diversify
The Hong Kong-based collector who spent US$81.3 million on a Van Gogh last year highlights a growing trend away from items of Asian origin for the continent’s collectors, while more first-time buyers are spending bigger money
Last year, Christie’s clients in Asia spent less on Asian art and artefacts than they did on non-Asian items for the first time, and generally preferred to invest in well-established artists at the top-end of the market, the auction house’s annual results show.
Rebecca Wei, Christie’s Asia president, says that this trend is personified by the Hong Kong-based collector who paid US$81.3 million for Vincent van Gogh’s Laboureur dans un Champ (1889) in November – the second-highest price paid for a painting by the Dutch master. She refused to divulge more information on the individual.
“Apart from Western works like the Van Gogh, we also saw the auction record for Zao Wou-Ki broken twice last year,” Wei says. “I guess this is a world where the rich are getting richer. We are seeing new buyers from mainland China, mostly, who skip the day sales and pick up masterpieces from evening sales as their first purchases.”
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It was Wei who took phone bids from the Hong Kong-based Van Gogh buyer at Christie’s Impressionist and Modern Art sale in New York. The same buyer went on to purchase other paintings by famous Western artists in the sale, according to The Art Newspaper and Artnet.com reporters, who observed that Wei placed more winning bids under the same paddle number. The previous year, Asian collectors had bid for Christie’s top lot – one of Claude Monet’s Haystack paintings – which eventually sold for US$81.4 million.
International auction houses and galleries, such as the ones moving into the new H Queen’s building in Hong Kong, are ramping up efforts to promote Western art in the region. Some argue that Western art offers better returns than, say, Asian contemporary art, a category backed by a less mature network of academic research, museums and collectors.
Wei says she is seeing more new collectors bet big from day one.
“We are seeing new buyers who don’t look at US$1 million works. They just go for the top pieces valued at US$10 million and above. All are successful Chinese entrepreneurs between the age of 40 and 60, which means that China is still the main engine of growth. No new mega clients are emerging in Southeast Asia.”