Asian buyers compete for Millfield-educated artist, a relative unknown who’s suddenly soaring and affordable little slices of the Kahlo mystique

Asian buyers compete for Millfield-educated artist

An artist who lived and worked in Britain for 50 years without achieving great recognition was one of the stars of the recent sales in Hong Kong. Richard Lin (1933-2011) was born in Taiwan but educated at Millfield, and later studied architecture in London. His minimalist, geometric abstractions were familiar to clients of London galleries Gimpel Fils and Marlborough Fine Art in the Fifties and Sixties, but after he split with Marlborough in the Seventies, he became a remote figure in the market, eventually abandoning painting altogether. 

In 2002, he decided to return to Taiwan, where he had interested buyers; but his market in the West remained static – prices at auction rarely exceeding ￡5,000. But following a retrospective exhibition in Taipei in 2010, Asian buyers began competing for his work, leading to an auction record of ￡491,000 at Christie’s last week. The next day, another of his works that had sold for $22,000 five years ago in Paris, also sold for ￡491,000 . 

One of the main buyers in Taiwan is a Cornell University-educated art historian, Dr Yang, who says Lin is “a legendary artist” there. This month, owners in Britain are selling several of Lin’s works in London’s forthcoming Modern British art sales, where estimates are pitched invitingly from ￡20,000 at Bonhams to ￡80,000 at Christie’s, the latter having been entrusted with three works from the artist’s estate. 

The relative unknown who’s suddenly soaring

The V&A is expecting big crowds at its Frida Kahlo: Making Her Self Up exhibition, which opens on June 16. The Mexican artist, who survived crippling disability in the most stylish way imaginable, has mythical status. Portrayed by Salma Hayek in the 2002 biopic Frida, and the subject of brand disputes from tequila to Barbie dolls, her image is unmistakable.

In the art market, her paintings have sold for up to $8 million, and a lost work, La Mesa Herida (the wounded table, 1940) last seen in the Fifties on its way to Russia, has recently been valued at $20 million by an investigator following its trail. 

Affordable little slices of the Kahlo mystique

The V&A show, though, focuses not on her paintings but on her wardrobe and possessions. Any captivated viewers wishing to purchase something of the Kahlo mystique at a lower price level have just a 15-minute walk to Michael Hoppen in Chelsea, where a rich mixture of recent and highly original photographs of Kahlo’s possessions by Japanese photographer Ishiuchi Miyako is on show.

Priced at ￡10,000, Miyako’s images are being exhibited alongside photographs of Kahlo by Lucienne Bloch, Imogen Cunningham and Lola Alvarez Bravo. Hoppen has obtained some later prints, which can be bought for between ￡3,500 and ￡5,500.