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Millions for Chinese Art
New York Times
April 11, 2007

A rare oil by the artist Xu Beihong went for $9.2 million at a Sotheby’s auction in Hong Kong, a record for a Chinese painting at auction, Reuters reported. Mr. Xu, who lived from 1895 to 1953, is considered the father of modern Chinese painting. The work, “Put Down Your Whip,” depicting a 1939 anti-Japanese street play in China, went to an anonymous bidder on Saturday. In four days of sales that ended yesterday, Sotheby’s sold a total of $135 million of mainly Chinese artwork, including $27.5 million in contemporary pieces. Despite strong demand, Henry Howard-Sneyd, Sotheby’s deputy chairman for Europe and Asia, said in an interview that he expected the surge in prices of Modern and contemporary Chinese paintings to level off. “The contemporary Chinese art market is no longer massively undervalued,” he said, adding, “We’ve still got some price jumps to come, but I think the jumps will be much less significant now.”

Xu Beihong was a mentor to Jin Zhilin.