Western artists look to the East in the hopes of cashing in on the booming Asian market

“Ten years ago there was very little Asian interest in buying Western art,” says Patti Wong, chairman of Sotheby’s Asia. “Asian collectors were much more focused on the art of their own cultures.” 

Since then, though, following the swift increase in wealth in the region (China now has more dollar billionaires than America), and the ambitious pursuit of cultural status, whether through their own country’s relics or the fashionable brands of Western culture, Asian buyers have become a key target for competing western auctioneers.

Indeed, last year Asian buyers accounted for 35 per cent (1.6 billion dollars) of the value of Sotheby’s global auction sales. The main area of growth was in Western art, which was up 10 per cent on 2016 and at $608 million (or ￡430 million) accounted for 38 per cent of total Asian spending. There was a parallel shift at Christie’s.

“The turning point came during the global financial crisis of 2007/08, when the Chinese were less affected,” says Wong. At the time, observers at auctions in London and New York noticed that Asians were beginning to buy, especially Impressionist, modern and contemporary works. 

Then, in December 2012, Sotheby’s launched its innovative Boundless sale in Hong Kong, mixing Western with Asian art and selling works by Fernando Botero and Henri Matisse to Asian buyers. The following year, Christie’s followed suit in Shanghai, trying out other established Western artists, such as Picasso, Warhol and Calder.

Asian buyers are spearheaded by wealthy individuals who are building private museums, such as the Japanese entrepreneur Yusaku Maesawa, who spent ￡125 million in New York last year on two paintings by Jean-Michel Basquiat and Christopher Wool. 

In China, museums have sprung up like mushrooms over the last decade. Former taxi driver Liu Yiqian and his wife, Wang Wei, who founded the Long Museum, in Shangai, paid a record-breaking $170.4 million for Amedeo Modigliani’s Reclining Nude at Christie’s New York in 2015, and, last year, $9.1 million - again, a record - for a painting by British artist Jenny Saville.

This week the art world turns its attention East-ward again, for both Art Basel Hong Kong, the Asian edition of the world’s largest modern and contemporary art fair, and for Sotheby’s Hong Kong spring sales of art, antiques, wine and jewellery, which are estimated to bring in some $360 million.

Interestingly, over half of the 248 participating galleries participating in ABHK are from the West, presumably hoping to cash in on the booming market in Asia. 

At Sotheby’s, meanwhile, no fewer than 27 works in the main auctions this week are by Western artists – auctions that four years ago were devoted exclusively to Asian artists. These include paintings by Jean Dubuffet and Robert Rauschenberg, the first time either has ever been offered in a Hong Kong sale, while the cover of the catalogue sports a slashed red canvas by the Italian post-war master Lucio Fontana – hardly ever seen at auction in China. 

Among the more contemporary artists is the former Spanish opera singer Jose-Maria Cano, who cracked the Asian market for the first time last year with a portrait of one of China’s richest men, Jack Ma. The painting quadrupled his existing record at $414,000, and Sotheby’s is betting he can do the same this week, this time with a portrait of Steve Jobs.

The icing on the cake, though, is Sotheby’s Hong Kong exhibition programme for private as opposed to auction sales, which opens on Thursday. The $200 million exhibition includes 40 artists ranging from Bonnard to Damien Hirst, and a number of Picassos from the artist’s granddaughter’s collection. This is in addition to a $150 million exhibition devoted to Picasso and the currently hot American artist George Condo, whose work sometimes echoes Picasso’s.

Wong says that the selection of artists Sotheby’s chooses to show and sell in Asia is not random. “We have extensive data on client interest and auction participation globally,” she explains.

“We know, for instance, that two of the top three de Koonings from 1977, of which we have an example here, were bought or underbid by Asian buyers; that an Asian bidder on the ￡50 million Picasso we had in London this month was very disappointed not to get it; and that, after Picasso, the most popular western artist amongst Asian buyers is Gerhard Richter, particularly his abstracts.”