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https://scmp.com/news/china/money-wealth/article/3013491/chinese-artists-chu-teh-chun-and-zao-wou-ki-set-records
China/ Money & Wealth

Chinese artists Chu Teh-chun and Zao Wou-ki set records at Paris auction as two paintings sold for more than US$11 million

  • One work by Chu was bought for more than five times its estimate price, while another by Zao went for four times more than expected
In this photo taken on November 26, 2003, French-Chinese painter Zao Wou-ki gestures during his induction ceremony in the painting section of the Academy of Fine Arts. Photo: AFP

Paintings by two of the “Three Musketeers” of Chinese art, Chu Teh-chun and Zao Wou-ki, have set new records, going for nearly €10 million (US$11.2 million) at a Paris auction.

The abstract work Synthese hivernale C by Chu went for more than €5.17 million – five times its estimate in an Artcurial sale late Wednesday.

The Chinese-born painter, who like his fellow modernist master Zao spent most of his life in France, was the first ethnic Chinese member of the French Academy of Fine Arts.

He died in Paris aged 93 in 2014. With Wu Guanzhong, the pair are known as the “Three Musketeers” of Chinese art.

Zao’s work 24.1.61/62 went under the hammer for more than €4.6 million in the same Artcurial auction – four times what it was expected to sell for.

Both paintings went for record prices for the artists outside Asia.

A triptych by Zao – Juin-Octobre 1985 – went for US$65 million at Sotheby’s Hong Kong in September.

Juin-Octobre 1985 by Zao Wou-ki unveiled at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre in Wan Chai. Photo: Dickson Lee
Juin-Octobre 1985 by Zao Wou-ki unveiled at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre in Wan Chai. Photo: Dickson Lee

The other headliners at the Paris sale were 15 watercolours by the Spanish surrealist master Salvador Dali, which went for €1.2 million.

They are valued individually between €20,000 and €100,000 (US$22,300 and US$112,000).

The works, created between 1959 and 1976 for the Spanish pharmaceutical company Hoechst Iberica, were for New Year’s greeting cards sent out to clients.

In addition to painting the cards, Dali penned exuberant holiday wishes and put his signature to them.

The works were displayed for two decades at the Dali Foundation in Figueres in his native Catalonia.