Sales in Chinese art market drop
Print Edition
THE Chinese art market plummeted last year, with auction sales of living artists’ works falling by 45 percent as the country’s slowing economic growth and corruption crackdown took their toll, a survey said yesterday.
By far the most valuable artist was ink painter Cui Ruzhuo, 72, who is known for his large-scale traditional landscapes, said wealth publisher the Hurun Report, which collated auction results for the 100 most lucrative Chinese artists.
Cui’s works fetched US$120.4 million, the report said, far ahead of second-placed oil painter Zeng Fanzhi, who saw his sales value crash by 62 percent.
“A heady mix of the continued anti-corruption campaign, which has put a stop to gifting art to government officers, and a slowdown in the economy have combined to see both sales and the number of top works at auction pretty much halve,” said Hurun Report Chairman Rupert Hoogewerf.
Growth in the world’s second-largest economy slowed to its weakest in a quarter of a century last year at 6.9 percent, a far cry from the double-digit boom years of the past.
Even so, China surpassed the United States last year to become home to the largest population of billionaires in the world, Hurun said in a previous report — indicating an increase in the pool of potential super-wealthy art collectors.
The 100 artists’ auction sales totaled US$56.5 billion.
Cui was one of just eight artists who saw an increase in sales, with his revenues up 69 percent from 2014.
He made headlines last April when an eight-paneled snowy mountainscape of his sold for US$30 million at Poly Auction in Hong Kong — the highest ever by a living Asian artist.
At that same auction, another of his landscapes that sold for US$3.7 million was mistaken for rubbish and thrown out by cleaners, with Cui telling the Wall Street Journal: “I believe it was an accident.”
Only three artists on the list were women. They included Chen Peiqiu, age 94, at No. 16.
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