Marketing Western masters

A reproduction of Renoir's painting At Class is on show; the original piece is at the Daniel Malingue Gallery in Paris.

Chen Lyusheng, deputy director of the National Museum of China, says that prolific artists like Picasso produced thousands of works and they are widely dispersed among public museums and galleries and in private collectors.

He says it is not difficult to mount an exhibition of a master's works by borrowing them from private collectors, but the best pieces are largely held by prestigious museums that are very selective about where their treasures are shown.

However, rising to the defense of private organizations that hold such events, Yan says they need time to become more professional.

He says unlike State-funded museums, the private sector has to sustain itself on tickets and marketing so that they can stage more shows.

He says the cost of the ongoing Renoir exhibition includes insurance, transportation, payment for borrowing works and sometimes even conservation fees. The total cost of such shows can work out to several millions of yuan.

He says he hopes to recover his costs through ticket sales (45 yuan for an adult) and other promotional activities. The exhibition ends on Aug 20 and will move to a shopping mall in Shenzhen in September.

Yan's company is also working with Germany's Bell Art Center to present an exhibition of Anselm Kiefer's works at the Baijia Lake Art Center later this year. And because of his sizeable body of work, Yan estimates the cost of the event will run into tens of millions of yuan.

The 71-year-old German artist is the first on a list of Western artists whose works Yan plans to showcase under a five-year agreement with the Bell Art Center signed recently, he says.

Yan says private organizations can also help in marketing Chinese artists abroad.

He says an overseas exhibition of Chinese oil painter Jin Shangyi is on his agenda.