Auctioneers seek to further interest in Western art among mainland Chinese
HK exhibitions are timed to fan mainlanders' interest ahead of auctions
Art auction giants Sotheby's and Christie's are stepping up efforts to expand the Chinese market for Impressionist and modern works despite a slowdown in the mainland economy.
Chinese buyers have increasingly come to dominate when Western masterpieces have gone up for sale over the past five years, the auctioneers say.
With Hong Kong showcasing multimillion-dollar artworks this Easter weekend, they expect the fanfare of publicity to stir up interest among local and mainland buyers ahead of sales in New York next month.
The most valuable piece on show at Christie's Central office until Monday is from Pablo Picasso's 1954-55 series.
The work is expected to fetch an estimated US$140 million when it goes under the hammer in the Big Apple on May 11.
Rival Sotheby’s is exhibiting one of Claude Monet’s trademark water lily paintings, Nympheas (1905), alongside its four-day spring auctions starting today at the Convention and Exhibition Centre in Wan Chai.
The work is expected to fetch US$30 million to US$45 million in New York on May 5.
Sotheby’s is also showing Femmes au chignon dans un fauteuil (1948) by Picasso, with a pre-sale estimate of US$12 million to US$18 million, as well as contemporary artworks by Roy Lichtenstein and Gerhard Richter.
Interest in Western masters started spawning a potential market among mainland Chinese collectors in the late 2000s when auction houses, including Est-Ouest Auctions from Japan and Seoul Auction, began selling their pieces in Hong Kong.
Sotheby's jumped on the bandwagon in 2010 with its first selling exhibition of Impressionist and modern art locally.
Now is the harvest time. Last year, the global art market saw record sales of just over €51 billion (HK$428 billion), of which China made up 22 per cent - one of the big three alongside the United States, with 39 per cent, and Britain, with 22 per cent, the Tefaf Art Market report says.
In particular, modern art - creations by artists born between 1875 and 1910 - accounted for €3.3 billion, or 28 per cent, of auction sales worldwide. China had a 30.6 per cent share in this market, almost on a par with 30.5 per cent in the United States.
Sotheby's said the number of mainlanders bidding for non-Chinese works had doubled since 2010. "More than US$410 million was spent by over 650 mainland Chinese clients in non-Chinese categories," it said.
One recent example was the US$61.76 million sale of Vincent van Gogh’s Vase with Daisies and Poppies to movie mogul Wang Zhongjun, a founder of Huayi Brothers Media, at Sotheby’s in New York last year, setting a new record for the Dutch master.
Christie's said it posted a 19 per cent rise in sales of Impressionist and modern artworks to US$1.2 billion, with purchases by Asian clients up 18 per cent.
More are buying Impressionist, luxury, post-war and contemporary art.
Conor Jordan, deputy chairman of Impressionist and modern art at Christie's in New York, said mainland Chinese who were new to this category tended to focus on significant names.
In 2013, Chinese real-estate conglomerate Wanda Group bought Picasso’s Claude et Paloma, a painting of the Spanish master’s two youngest children, for US$28.2 million at Christie’s in New York. Chinese buyers also snapped up works by van Gogh and Monet at the same sale.
Compared to new collectors from countries including Russia, Jordan said mainland Chinese were already veterans in collecting Chinese works of art and were expanding their collections beyond their heritage.
"They are in their 40s or above, who have made enough money from property, finance, manufacturing and retail, and are largely male," he said.
Tomorrow, Sotheby's will put on sale a calligraphy work by Hong Kong's late "King of Kowloon" Tsang Tsou-choi and a conceptual sculpture by mainlander Ai Weiwei .
