Money

Art makes a valuable impression

By Andrew Moody (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-05-24 09:57

The Chinese flag billows outside Sotheby's New York headquarters. Chinese mainland buyers are having a dramatic affect on the Western art market. Wherever the auctioneers have a sale of Chinese art, whether in New York, Paris or London, the rooms are becoming packed with people from China. [Provided to China Daily]

Chinese buyers flock to auction houses to buy works by Western artists including Warhol and Picasso

LONDON - Kevin Ching, chief executive officer for Sotheby's in Asia, believes Chinese mainland buyers are having a dramatic effect on the Western art market.

This was symbolized last month when the international auctioneers hoisted the Chinese flag outside its New York headquarters.

"The Chinese mainland buyers just used to go mainly to Hong Kong for auctions but now they are traveling all over the world," he said.

Ching, a 53-year-old Hong Kong Chinese was speaking in Sotheby's offices in New Bond Street in London just a day after the Fine Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art sale, where the saleroom was packed with people from the Chinese mainland.

"We had our Chinese sale here yesterday (May 12) and the room was full of people from Asia, especially China. Wherever you go now - London, New York or Paris - when you have a sale of Chinese art, the room will be packed with people from China," he said.

The China flag flying in New York is in recognition of the business generated by the Chinese for the auction house.

Chinese mainland buyers made up around half of last year's sales in Asia for Sotheby's compared with just 15 percent when Ching joined the firm in 2006. On the back of this Hong Kong has become the company's third most important sales center after New York and London.

It was at Ching's suggestion the China flag should be flown over the York Avenue building.

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"A lot of Chinese kept coming to the building and asked why we didn't raise the Chinese flag. When it was to happen I was asked to come over to sing the China anthem," he said.

The main international focus is now on China's new rich buying Western art, particularly impressionists. It is believed a number of leading works at a Sotheby's impressionist auction in New York earlier this month went to mainland Chinese buyers.

Ching said the big purchases by Chinese collectors of impressionist art have really begun to happen over recent months.

"It has taken off over the last year. Previously, there were a lot of inquiries and underbidding but no real purchases. The fighting to secure the works started at the end of 2008 or the beginning of 2009," he said.

"We thought originally our first major buyers would be from developed areas such as Beijing or Shanghai but that is actually not the case with many coming from other provinces."

Ching, a trained lawyer who is also a jade collector, said the art buying of the Chinese is beginning to be more aggressive than that of the Japanese in the 1980s.