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Lana Lam

The most expensive still life by Vincent van Gogh ever sold at auction has arrived at its new home: Hong Kong.
But don't expect to glimpse Still Life, Vase with Daisies and Poppies any time soon. Instead, it will be under close guard at the Hong Kong home of one of China's richest men, film mogul Wang Zhongjun.
"I will hang it in my home here in Hong Kong," the chairman of Shenzhen-listed Huayi Brothers film studios said as he collected the piece yesterday. "[It will] make my home more colourful".
Wang, who once dubbed his Beijing home a museum because it housed dozens of expensive artworks, bought the 124-year-old masterpiece for US$61.8 million at a Sotheby's auction in New York last month.
It is the highest auction price for a Van Gogh since 1998.
Yesterday, dressed casually in black jeans, a hoodie and sneakers, Wang could easily have passed for a weekend shopper at Pacific Place in Admiralty. But the 54-year-old, estimated by Forbes to have a net worth of US$910 million, was headed to Sotheby's offices to be formally presented with the precious artwork.
Wang inspected the painting closely for the first time and said it had been well preserved. "That's very rare; I'll keep it very well for the next 20 or 30 years," he said.
Wang admitted he did not know much about the painting before he bought it. His interest was piqued when he saw it at a pre-sale event in Hong Kong in October, but was unsure.
"But at the auction [on November 4], I thought it was destiny and the price seemed to be slightly lower than I expected," he said. "I felt really relaxed when I raised the bidding number."
The painting sold well above its estimate of between US$30 million and US$50 million.
Wang, who paints and studied art at college, has been an avid collector for years, but said his tastes had evolved. "More than 10 years ago, I really admired and respected Chinese academic painters. In recent years … my aesthetic views have changed."
Van Gogh is Wang's favourite Impressionist painter and also the biggest influence on his art.
"My painting style is the same as Van Gogh's. My flowers and still-life paintings all have elements of his style. Why is my style similar to his? It's hard to tell. Maybe it's because I've always seen artworks at museums."
It is Wang's first Van Gogh and will join a collection that boasts the work of other Impressionist masters such as Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Camille Pissarro.
The painting was one of Van Gogh's last creations, made in June 1890 shortly after his release from a mental asylum in St-Remy in southern France. A month later, Van Gogh killed himself.
Wang's studio has produced films such The Forbidden Kingdom, which starred Jackie Chan and Jet Li, and The Banquet, with actress Zhang Ziyi.
The Van Gogh sale follows several other big-ticket art pieces bought by mainland Chinese collectors this year. In November, Shanghai billionaire Liu Yiqian paid HK$348.4 million for a Tibetan tapestry. In April, Liu spent HK$281.24 million on the Meiyintang Chenghua, a piece of Chinese porcelain known as a "chicken cup" in Hong Kong.
But Sotheby's and Christie's saw lower revenue for their autumn sales in Hong Kong, blamed in part on a crackdown on consumption by Beijing as part of its anti-graft drive.
Additional reporting by Kathy Gao


Van Gogh still life makes big impression on film mogul Wang Zhongjun

Mainland film mogul Wang Zhongjun says he will keep Vincent van Gogh's "Still Life: Vase with Daisies and Poppies" for the next two or three decades. Photo: Sam Tsang

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Hong Kong

High-priced Van Gogh to bring splash of colour to tycoon's HK home


The most expensive still life by Vincent van Gogh ever sold at auction has arrived at its new home: Hong Kong.


Van Gogh still life makes big impression on film mogul Wang Zhongjun

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}High-priced Van Gogh to bring splash of colour to tycoon's HK home

High-priced Van Gogh to bring splash of colour to tycoon's HK home