He only took the "grey end" of the sale of Modern Chinese Paintings held by Christie's in the city's Convention Centre on May 31. This comprised the last 60 lots of largely watercolours and scrolls in the traditional mode executed in the 20th century and excluding the contemporary end of the market.
Although short in lot numbers selling this last section took from 10 pm till 12.20 am. Sulich said, however, that the room was still three quarters full (that is about 180 people) when the auction closed as buyers were canny bidders waiting until the hammer was almost ready to fall before raising their hands for the last time.
Intending bidders on $HK10 million plus lots mostly had no problems coming to terms with the need to obtain a black paddle (against a white one for the not so rich folk) which signified that their financial credentials had been checked out and that their bids would be accepted. This requirement had been imposed after a number of new bidders at sales of Chinese art around the world reportedly had not completed their purchases.
The exhuberant bidding which had taken their bids to beyond what they wanted or could afford to pay has been put down largely to the importance some bidders attached to saving or maintaining face in the trade and many auction houses have demanded pre-payments or other guarantees before agreeing to take their bids .
Sulich did not have to refuse any bids but his colleague Hugh Edmeades did so on only one occasion elsewhere in a three day run of four Asian sales by the auction house.
The top price in the auction was Lotus, a work by the modern master Zhang Daqian (1899-1983) which sold for seven times the high estimate at $HK56.7 million..
Sulich had four very much more lowly priced works by this artist in his segment of the sale but his section produced a fine sleeper when Autumn Sentiments by Pan Tianshou (1897-1971) estimated at $HK100,000 to $HK200,000) sold for $HK3.38 million. The scroll was a very minimalist work showing a branch of a tree with calligraphy. The Art Gallery of NSW secured a similar work but with a bird on the branch - and presumably therefore more likely to fly if ever it came onto the market - in 1985. .
The scroll was from the collection of Professor Lin Shenyang, an ancestral native of Chenghai, Guangdong, who was a was a noted modern abstract artist living in Sao Paolo, Brazil, where he developed associations with the Biennale, in later life. The 10 hour sale produced 15 lots over $HK10 million with 93 per cent of the works selling for over $HK10 million. Only seven of the 339 lots failed to sell.The sale result must have seemed particularly encouraging as it appears to have been attended more strongly by people from Greater China than the other sales where Hong Kong and overseas Chinese money tends to prevail.
The other names to fire were Wu Guanzhong, Xu Beihong, Lin Fengmian and Li Keran. These names are already appearing on scrolls at salerooms around the world, the scrolls best described as "bearing" their signatures. Apparently this is not necessarily deceptive as they were often added by imitators in respect of the artists as copying is part of the curriculum of traditional Chinese art schools.
Had not many of the works by these artists already been sold off in the early noughties as the Chinese art market gathered pace it might have also pleased (rather than peeved) a small group of afficionadoes who bought them in Australia from the 1970s on
Together with the morning sale of Fine Chinese Classical Paintings and Calligraphy the Fine Chinese Modern Paintings made a total of HK$1,093 million (Au$133 million).
