s recently been the subject of many art columns because of the highly successful auction held at Sotheby’s featuring a significant portion of their corporate holdings of Modern and Contemporary paintings. Because the Reader’s Digest collection of European paintings was so well known, its appearance on the auction block was accompanied by much fanfare and anticipation, but the art world at large is unaware of the quiet role that the collection played in the development of the Chinese painting market in New York. In June of 1982, when the Chinese painting department was struggling to gain credibility and recognition, Sotheby Parke Bernet offered for sale an extremely important painting by the most significant living Chinese painter of the time, Zhang Daqian. The monumental six-panel work “Giant Lotus” had been purchased by Reader’s Digest in 1963 from an exhibition of the artist’s work held at Hirschl and Adler Gallery in New York. The curators of the Reader’s Digest collection had no knowledge or interest in Chinese art, even contemporary Chinese art, and they decided to sell the work at auction. When I visited corporate headquarters in Westchester. I was astounded to be asked by the curator whether the six large hanging scrolls, which are clearly meant to be hung together as a single work, could be sold separately. I was relieved to land the consignment and to receive permission to sell the painting as one lot! The image of “Giant Lotus” appeared as a wrap-around cover for the June 1982 auction of Chinese Works of Art and Paintings and it attracted interest from across the globe, selling to a collector in Taiwan for $77,000, at the time a world-record auction price for a contemporary Chinese painting. The sale of the painting received significant publicity in Taiwan and Hong Kong and it helped to bolster Sotheby’s reputation in Asia for expertise in Chinese paintings.
Europe proved to be an unexpected source of consignments during the early eighties. In addition, collectors and dealers in Hong Kong, taking note of the positive results of the auctions of pre-modern Chinese paintings, began to consign works for sale in New York. By 1984 the increased supply of good works, coupled with evidence of a modest but increasing demand internationally, justified semi-annual specialized sales of Chinese paintings and calligraphy accompanied by the publication of separate catalogues.
I discovered a remarkable collection in Germany which yielded a significant number of important works of Chinese painting, calligraphy, and ink rubbings, which were sold off gradually throughout the decade. One of the early successes from this consignment was the sale, on June 13, 1984, of an album of twenty-five letters by Song and Yuan dynasty calligraphers). Included among the leaves were examples of writing by the Song dynasty writers Liu Wuyan, Wang Sheng, Wu Ju, and Fan Chengda, and the Yuan dynasty calligraphers Zhao Mengfu, Xianyu Shu , Qiu Yuan, Zhang Yu, and Ni Zan. The album was of great importance, for both artistic and historical reasons, but since no work of this type had ever been offered at auction before, the presale estimate was a conservative $30,000-50,000. After intense competition, primarily among overseas Chinese collectors, the album sold for $297,000, nearly ten times the presale estimate and easily a world auction record for Chinese calligraphy at the time.
Sotheby’s December 1984 auction of Fine Chinese Paintings included several important works dating from the 13th century to the present. Among the offerings were “Old Trees, Bamboo and Rock” by Ni Zan, “Landscape After Xia Gui” by Zhuang Jiongsheng, “The Qianlong Emperor’s Southern Inspection Tour” by Xu Yang, and Li Shizhuo’s “Landscape in the Style of Wang Meng.” The most remarkable lot in the sale, however, was “River Landscape,” the earliest known extant dated work by the Ming master Wen Zhengming. Signed Hengshan Wen Bi, and inscribed with a date corresponding to October 30, 1499, this short handscroll was accompanied by a most impressive series of colophons written by many of the luminaries of late 15th-early 16th century Suzhou, including Shen Zhou, Wu Kuan, Zhu Yunming, Wang Chong, Chen Shun, Peng Nian, Wang Guxiang , Wen Peng and others. The inclusion of the painting in the Imperial Collection of the Qianlong and Jiaqing Emperors, attested to by the six Imperial seals affixed to the painting and its appearance in the catalogue Shiqu baoji sanbian, added luster to its provenance. The scroll had been consigned by a young Hong Kong collector and it was finally hammered down for $187,000 to a new North American collector bidding against stiff international competition. The entire auction totaled nearly $800,000, well below the $1,200,000 presale low estimate for the 126 lots, but encouraging nonetheless because nearly 80% (by value) was sold and a number of pieces brought strong prices.
The international character of the Chinese paintings market encouraged a global approach to marketing, in which Hong Kong and New York auctions complemented rather than competed with one another. Expertise and administrative support were shared between the two auction sites, as were salaries and expenses. The system required cooperation and coordination and it succeeded because the individuals involved were firmly committed to the success of the enterprise. I had the good fortune to work directly with many capable and dedicated individuals, including Tammy Mui and Maria Chu in Hong Kong, and Angela Hsu and Laura Whitman in New York, all of whom began as administrators and became specialists in their own right. Additionally I received tremendous support from my colleagues in the international Chinese Works of Art Department and in Sotheby’s regional offices, especially Rita Wong, Suzanne Tory, Meeseen Loong, Tony Omura, Timothy Sammons, Jonathan Bennett, David Priestley, and Patti Lam, all of whom were helpful in finding consignments as well as in assisting collectors and cultivating new buyers.

Another important work of Yuan dynasty calligraphy appeared in Sotheby’s New York June 1985 auction of Fine Chinese Paintings. Zhao Mengfu’s 1303 “Record of the Repair of the Three Purities Palace at the Temple of the Mysterious and Marvelous” (Xuanmiaoguan chongxiu sanqingdian zhiji), a handscroll written in regular script, was consigned by a young Chinese gentleman who had acquired it in France from a French family who knew nothing of its origin or its potential historical or monetary value. The new owner knew little more, except that it bore the signature of the famous Yuan dynasty literatus and he purchased it on the chance that it might be genuine. Based on the collectors’ seals and colophons, the scroll displayed a magnificent provenance. It had been in the collection of the 14th century Prince Zhu Gang. Later, the Ming scholar Chen Jiru attached a colophon and the painter Cheng Zhengkui affixed his seal, and it then found its way into the hands of two of the premier collectors of the 17th and 18th centuries, Liang Qingbiao, and An Qi, who recorded it in his Moyuan huiguan. The scroll subsequently entered the Qianlong Imperial collection and it is dutifully noted in the Shiqu Baoji xubian. In spite of the impressive pedigree of the handscroll, two of the leading authorities on Chinese calligraphy in America initially expressed doubts about its authenticity, perhaps confusing it with a well known related work in a Japanese collection. Fortunately two astute overseas Chinese collectors recognized the scroll’s importance and they bid it up to a final price of $77,000.
France was also the source of an intriguing album of ten leaves ascribed to the great Southern Song dynasty painter Ma Yuan sold in December 1986. The consignor of this set of landscapes was a wealthy Parisian who was a major collector of modern European paintings and was thus well known to the Sotheby’s Paris office. She could not remember where or when she had acquired the album but since it did not fit in with the rest of her collection she decided to sell it. There was much presale discussion among scholars as to the authenticity of the paintings, four of which bear the signature of Ma Yuan. Opinions ranged from “genuine” to “Southern Song, but not Ma Yuan,” to “Ming Academy work,” to “17th century copy,” but in the end the album was sold for $319,000 to a Chinese-American collector who believes it to be a genuine work of the Song master. Nestled amongst the leaves of the album was a short note written in French which indicated that the work had been purchased from a soldier who had fought in China, presumably during the Boxer Rebellion of 1900. This album must have been looted from the Imperial Palace when the combined Western military forces were called in to quell an anti-Christian, anti-foreign Chinese peasant uprising. As a result of the suppression of the Boxer Uprising, not only did the Qing government suffer the indignity of agreeing to pay a huge indemnity to the foreign powers, but a number of European, Japanese, and American soldiers helped themselves to what they considered to be war booty and souvenirs from the Forbidden City. A significant number of paintings and large quantities of Imperial ceramics and other works of art must have found their way into Western collections during the early part of this century in this manner, although the casual note found in this album provides rare documentation of the phenomenon.
The great majority of works bought and sold at auction are done so anonymously, particularly in a relatively new market such as Chinese paintings. Part of the attraction of the process is the element of surprise; one never knows what may turn up in the next sale. Buyers are always looking to acquire “fresh goods” that have not appeared on the market before. Sellers, on the other hand, appreciate the ability to dispose of works in a discreet manner. In the case of famous works or well-established collections, however, the auction houses can also capitalize on the cachet and reputation associated with the individual work or collection. Paintings that have been exhibited in museums or have appeared in serious publications tend to be more marketable. Works from respected collections can likewise be more desirable. Landing an important collection or estate creates an opportunity for promotion and also enhances the reputation of the department within the field and within the company. Throughout the decade of the eighties I was involved in the sale of several important private collections of Chinese paintings, including Chinese Paintings, Japanese Paintings and Screens from the Estate of Chester Dale Carter (1980); Fan Paintings from the late Chan Yee Pong (1982), a Chinese-Canadian from Hong Kong; Fine Chinese Paintings from the Yuzhai (Jade Studio Collection), the collection of Wong Nan-p’ing of Hong Kong; Fine Chinese Paintings and Calligraphy from the Sixuezhai Collection (1987), the collection of Wu P’u-hsin, who spent his last years in Taiwan; and Chinese Paintings from the Collection of the Late Victoria Contag (1989), which had formerly been on loan to the Nelson-Atkins Museum, Kansas City.
The most exciting collection I ever worked on, however, was perhaps more interesting because of its owner than for its contents, although the collection did contain several masterpieces. I refer to the collection of Zhang Xueliang, known to students of modern Chinese history as the “Young Marshall.” Zhang is the son of the powerful Manchurian warlord Zhang Zuolin, who was assassinated in 1928. After his father’s death, Zhang Xueliang took control over much of northeastern China and was a major player in the subsequent period of warfare, politics, and intrique which shaped the face of modern China. He is most renowned (or notorious, depending on your point of view) for his participation in the Xi’an Incident of 1936 whereby he captured Guomindang leader Chiang Kai-shek and forced him to negotiate with the Chinese Communist Party to create a united front to fight the Japanese. Chiang did give lip-service to the united front effort and flew back with Zhang to Nanjing where Chiang was given a hero’s welcome. Zhang Xueliang’s efforts to unify China against a common enemy, however, were rewarded with a swift court-martial and more than five decades of house arrest.
My first contact with the Zhang Xueliang collection was in 1984. An intermediary had brought two fine 18th century paintings into the Sotheby’s Taipei office. Prior to this occasion I had seen very few good Chinese paintings in private hands in Taiwan. Although there were no collectors’ seals on the paintings, my experience told me that such high quality works, beautifully mounted, must be from a serious collection. I took a chance. Without commenting in detail about either of the works I said simply: “The owner of these paintings must have many good things. I would like to see them.” The intermediary left, saying that she would talk with the owner. Later that day, while Rita Wong, then head of the Taiwan office, was driving me home it occurred to me that the most logical source of the two paintings had to be Zhang Xueliang. In his youth, well before the Xi’an Incident, Zhang had been known as a collector of Chinese art. He had the means to buy the best works and he had the right connections. In early publications on Chinese painting his name is often listed as the owner of specific works which had not yet resurfaced. Over the next few years I developed a peculiar relationship with Zhang Xueliang, through his intermediary, who initially did not acknowledge his identity but realized that I knew who the real owner of these works was. She began showing me paintings on his behalf, some for sale, some not, and she would relay back to Zhang my comments about the works. We began selling the less important scrolls, which did not bear his collector’s seals, but gradually he consigned, always through a friend in the United States, major paintings by artists such as Shen Zhou and calligraphy by as importantt a writer as Zhao Mengfu.

At this time Zhang Xueliang was technically still under house arrest but, as he had already outlived most of his detractors and he posed no threat to the government of the Republic of China, he led a fairly unfettered existence and was even permitted to visit friends and go out to dinner. I met him in person for the first time, along with Rita Wong, and for the next ten years we had many opportunities to visit with him and his wife Edith and we shared several meals with them. He was always excited to talk about Chinese art, collecting, and his longtime friendship with Zhang Daqian, who had died in 1983.
By the time Zhang Xueliang was finally released from house arrest in 1988, many of his best paintings had already been sold through New York auctions, but he still retained in Taiwan a large number of paintings and calligraphy, including hundreds of fan paintings. In consultation with Rita Wong he made the bold decision to offer the remainder of his collection at public auction in Taipei, using his studio name Dingyuanzhai. Although I had already resigned my position at Sotheby’s, at Zhang’s request I assisted in the cataloging of the sale. The auction of Fine Chinese Paintings from the Dingyuanzhai Collection was held in Taipei on Sunday, April 10, 1994. The presale exhibition was extremely well attended and the salesroom was packed with serious collectors of Chinese art as well as dozens of unfamiliar faces and first-time buyers who were not really art collectors but were aware of the identity of the owner and hoped to come away with a piece of history. The sale was a tremendous success and Zhang Xueliang, along with his
As we enter a new year that finds parts of Asia, including Hong Kong, in the midst of the region’s biggest economic decline in decades, we may question the wisdom and timing of Sotheby’s choice to put all its Chinese painting eggs in one Asian basket. K. S. Wong has left Christie’s, which should at least allow C. M. Ma the autonomy to structure the sales in a way that is most beneficial to the company and to his clients. As this article goes to press, it is rumored that K. S. Wong will soon join Sotheby’s as a consultant. If confirmed, we can only hope that both he and his former colleague, C. M. Ma, will see the advantage of maintaining an auction presence in New York. If not, we are witnessing the close of a short but intense chapter in Chinese painting history. If the major auction houses decide that it is no longer financially viable to continue to hold sales of Chinese paintings in New York, it will be up to a few committed and knowledgable dealers to try to pick up the slack.
Arnold Chang
New York, January 1999
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Essay 2
Shadow Skeletons and New Realities–Guohua and Cultural Identity (Reprinted from Kaikodo Journal VI, October 1997, pp. 37-44.)
As the dawn of a new millenium rapidly approaches, modern and contemporary Chinese art is receiving an unprecedented amount of attention throughout Asia and the West. Exhibitions of works in all media by Chinese artists from mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong (once again a part of China after a century of British rule), and overseas have been mounted or are being planned throughout Asia, Europe, and the United States. In New York, the Metropolitan Museum of Art has recently opened their renovated Chinese Galleries and, for the first time, thanks to a generous gift from Robert H. Ellsworth, Chinese paintings from the 19th and 20th centuries are prominently displayed alongside masterpieces from earlier periods. The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum is planning a major exhibition of 5,000 years of Chinese art which will include modern and contemporary works in a variety of media, and the Asia Society is organizing a show of contemporary art by Chinese artists living outside of China for the fall of 1998.
In Beijing, the Ministry of Culture of the People’s Republic of China is presently organizing a show ambitiously and ambiguously titled: “The World Chinese Calligraphy and Painting Exhibition ‘97.” Expected to travel to several venues in China as well as to Canada and the United States, this exhibition will focus primarily on traditional works by Chinese artists residing all over the world.
There is now a thriving art market for contemporary Chinese paintings, done in both traditional and Western styles. Auctions of this material are now held on a regular basis in many cities throughout China as well as in New York, Hong Kong, Taipei, and Singapore. Specialized galleries have been established all over the world and several dealers in ancient Chinese art (including Kaikodo) have begun to feature contemporary paintings as well.
As we try to absorb this impressive flood of images and information about 20th century Chinese art we are suddenly encountering, and before we begin to assess the artistic and art-historical merits of these works of art, it is useful to present a brief outline of some of the major issues that have concerned Chinese artists during the last century and identify some of the stylistic trends that have shaped the context in which the art of this period was and is being created.
During the past one hundred years the political, social, and economic systems of China have been transformed on an unprecedented scale. Even before the Imperial monarchy that had ruled China for several thousand years was completely overthrown in 1911, the Chinese had begun to assess their inherited traditions and values and to question their very cultural identity. Julia Andrews, in her recent study of art in the People’s Republic, summarizes:
“Shortly before the turn of the century, in the final years of the Qing dynasty (1644-1911), it became apparent to Chinese intellectuals that the international community was dominated by Western nations and Japan, countries at the forefront of modern technology. The military defeats of China by the British in 1842 and 1860, by the French in 1885, by the Japanese in 1895, and by the allied powers in 1900 were the most evident signs of China’s failure to maintain her rightful place in the world. Debate over the correct Chinese response to this crisis monopolized intellectual activity during the first decades of the twentieth century. Some writers found Chinese culture to be so unalterably backward that China could have no hope to function in the modern world. Others aspired to modify Chinese culture and so make the nation into a viable modern force. Still others believed that China’s culture had unique values that must at all costs be preserved.”1
Parallel arguments were made with regard to the visual arts. Traditional Chinese painting (guohua)2 especially as practiced after the Song dynasty, was specifically criticized for its lack of realism or naturalism, and the conscious disregard by its practitioners of the harsh realities of contemporary society in favor of a rarefied vision of an ideal Confucian society which had never existed in fact. The type of guohua practiced by the literati (wenrenhua) was severely attacked by many critics, among the most vocal of whom was the reformer Kang Youwei (1858-1927), who accused: “Four or five hundred years ago Chinese painting was the best. What a pity that it has not developed since then. . . . Today, industry, commerce, and everything else are related to art. Without art reform those fields cannot develop. . . . Chinese painting has declined terribly because its theory is ridiculous. . . . How can those who paint just for fun in their spare time capture the true character of all things on earth. It is totally wrong to regard the literati spirit as the orthodox school of painting.”3
Kang’s views represented the prevailing attitude among progressive Chinese intellectuals who associated modernization with Westernization and Westernization with the development of science and technology. These basic assumptions dominated intellectual thought for decades, if not generations. Several years later Cai Yuanpei (1876-1940), President of Peking University and a prominent figure in the May Fourth Movement of 1912, remarked: “the good point of Europeanization is that everything takes science as its foundation: the improvement of life; the reform of society; even the creation of art. They all progress along with the progress of science.”4 This emphasis on progress and the sincere belief that Western art (as the Chinese perceived it) was inherently more scientific and modern (and therefore more desirable) presented a serious challenge to advocates of literati painting and nearly signaled the end of the guohua tradition altogether.
Many artists chose not to abandon completely traditional Chinese painting but tried instead to make adjustments in subject matter or style in order to broaden its appeal and update its appearance, making it more responsive to the perceived needs of contemporary society. This colloquialization (to borrow a phrase describing a similar but more far-reaching movement in literature) of Chinese painting is epitomized by the work of the great Qi Baishi (1864-1955), whose colorful depictions of common objects from everyday life enlivened the tradition through the introduction of a colloquial vocabulary of familiar images. However, Qi did not sacrifice such traditional aesthetic values as excellence in brushwork, simplicity of form, and directness of expression; on the contrary, his work may be seen as advancing the art form in each of these aspects. The degree of Qi Baishi’s success is indicated most clearly by the fact that his style forms the basis of much of the guohua produced during the past fifty years.
Most critics, including Kang Youwei, advocated a synthesis of Western and Chinese art: “if we adhere to the old way without change, Chinese painting will become extinct. Now, at this historic moment, it is up to those who are up to the challenge to arise. They must begin a new era by combining Chinese and Western art.”5
Kang’s approach was based on a formulation that he and the other “self-strengtheners” of the unsuccessful 1898 reform movement had advocated as a solution to most of China’s ills. Jonathan Spence explains:
“‘Chinese learning should remain the essence, but Western learning be used for practical development.’ Generally abbreviated as the ti-yong idea (from the Chinese words for ‘essence’ and ‘practical use’), this was a culturally reassuring position in a time of ambiguous, often painful change. It affirmed that there was indeed a fundamental structure of Chinese moral and philosophical values that gave continuity and meaning to the civilization. Holding on to that belief, China could then afford to adopt quickly and dramatically all sorts of Western practices, and to hire Western advisors.”6
During the first decades of this century, numbers of young painters took up Kang’s challenge in earnest. Some, like Fu Baoshi (1904-1965) and the Gao brothers (founders of the Lingnan School), traveled to Japan to investigate the process by which Japanese artists were modernizing their native traditions by a selective incorporation of Western techniques and styles. Some of the most famous, including Xu Beihong (1895-1953), Liu Haisu (1896-1994), and Lin Fengmian (1900-1991), went to Europe to experience Western culture at first hand and to learn what they could about European art.
Although agreeing on the general premise that Chinese painting needed an infusion of Western artistic know-how in order to advance into the modern age, the three leaders of this Westernizing movement, Xu, Liu, and Lin, did not see eye-to-eye on much else. Xu Beihong favored realistic, academic oil painting. Liu Haisu, renowned for being the first in China to employ nude models for life drawing in his art school, was enamored of the Impressionists and post-Impressionists. Lin Fengmian favored Matisse and Vlaminick.
The arguments among these three and their followers as to which foreign models to follow were as vehement as those waged by traditional painters about whether to imitate the Four Wangs (as did Wu Hufan and his students) or Shitao and Bada Shanren (as did Zhang Daqian and his followers). History would note that, at least for the short term, Xu Beihong’s academic realism ultimately won out, although more for political and ideological than artistic reasons.
The decades of the 1920s and 1930s were a period of great creativity and artistic experimentation. With increased exposure to the West and Japan, Chinese artists appropriated hitherto unknown styles, techniques, and ideas, often without fully understanding their original cultural context; a situation which led the influential writer Lu Xun (1881-1936) to muse in 1927:
“A horrifying phenomenon in the world of literature and the arts in China now is the importation of an ‘ism,’ but without introducing the meaning of this ‘ism.’ As a result, everyone uses his own interpretation. When he reads a work mainly on the author himself, he calls that ‘Expressionism.’ If it concerns other people more, then it is ‘Realism.’ To be moved by a girl’s exposed legs to write poetry is ‘Romanticism,’ but to look at a girl’s legs and not be allowed to write poetry is called ‘Classicism.’ A head falls down from the sky, on this head stands a cow, oh, love. . . . Such is ‘Futurism,’ etc., etc.” 7
By the end of the 1930s the future of Chinese art looked promising, albeit somewhat confused. Artists were free to work in all media, which they did in an incredible range of styles and with tremendous passion and dedication. Traditional painting continued to be practiced, Western-style works in oil and watercolor were produced, and a variety of hybrid approaches were developed, on the basis of Chinese “essence” combined in various ways with Western “practice.” Chinese artists of the following decades, however, would have to contend with a much more horrifying set of “isms”: “Communism,” “Marxism,” and “Maoism.”
The politicization of all aspects of the processes of creating, exhibiting, publishing or otherwise disseminating art in the People’s Republic of China is discussed in several recent studies and doubtless will continue to be a subject of inquiry for many years to come. 8 Although many questions remain and many individual stories have yet to be recounted, it is clear that one of the casualties of mainland art policy from the 1950s to the 1980s was Chinese traditional painting. In the Introduction to
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