Chinese Art
Ai Weiwei (1957)
Ai Weiwei is an artist and sculptor from Beijing. He became part of a group of artists called Stars, which refused to create artwork that followed government guidelines.
From 1981 to 1993, Ai Weiwei lived in the United States. During this time he focused on Performance and Conceptual Art, and graduated from the Parsons School of Design. In 2011, after returning to Beijing Ai Weiwei was listed as one of the top 100 of most influential people in the world by Time Magazine.
Auction Record (2015): US$ 4,727,100
Average Auction Sales Price (2015): US$ 731,572
Ai Xuan (1947)
Ai Xuan was born in 1947 in Hebei province. He is the son of the prominent political poet Ai Qing and half-brother of renown artist Ai Weiwei. He graduated from Central Academy of Fine Arts in 1976. During the cultural revolution Ai Xuan was sent by the government to work as hard labour in a Tibetan military farm from 1969 – 1973.
The early life experience provided him with the subject matter for his best known finely rendered Tibetan series, often described as using scenery to express emotions.
Ai Xuan has been immersed in realist paintings in the past three decades. His work is rich in symbolism, he focuses on the natural environment and human relationships, Ai Xuan devoted his life in creating fantasies that have proved popular with the mainland elite.
Auction Record (2010): US$ 2,778,700
Average Auction Sales Price (2015): US$ 357,725
Chen Danqing (1953)
Chen Danqing is a Chinese/American artist, writer and art critic born in Shanghai and graduated from the Central Academy of Fine Arts. He is now a US citizen having moved there in the 1980s. He is known mainly for his Realist paintings, which he created shortly after China’s opening in the late 1970s and early 1980s. His most widely acclaimed work features portraits of Tibetans.
Auction Record (2011): US$ 3,090,000
Average Auction Sales Price (2015): US$ 267,565
Fang Lijun (1963)
Fang Lijun is a painter and printmaker associated with the Cynical Realist movement and is best known for his realistic paintings that criticize contemporary cultural values in China. He incorporates imagery from pop culture, fold art and traditional Chinese painting and his work often features bald, aggressive looking figures.
Auction Record (2014): US$ 6,697,600
Average Auction Sales Price (2015): US$ 246,528
He Duoling (1948)
He Duoling is widely regarded as one of China’s greatest living masters of realism. He resides in Chengdu, where he was born in 1948 and earned his art degree from the local teacher’s college in 1977. He went on to study painting at Chongqing’s Sichuan Fine Arts Institute in the late 1970s and with a number of his colleagues in the early 190s founded China’s infamous ‘Scar Art’ movement.
Auction Record (2014): US$ 1,419,00
Average Auction Sales Price (2015): US$ 219,469
Jia Aili (1979)
Jia Aili was born in 1979 in Liaoning provenance, China. Born in the era of open economy and increasing prosperity in China, Jia represents a young generation’s worry for losing traditions and values in the fast evolving world and his work reflects the dramatic changes in Chinese society after the reform and opening policy. Using the strong traditional painting technique and Old-Master-inspired painting style, he deftly combines the socio-economic development of China and its wider implications.
Born and raised as part of the sibling-less generation, Jia translates his artistic language to define the plight of the lonely generation, abandoned by the state’s relentless pursuit for a technological progress.
Jia Aili is regarded as one of the most exciting emerging artists in China
Auction Record (2015): US$ 1,419,00
Average Auction Sales Price (2015): US$ 647,015
Liu Ye (1964)
Liu Yu is known for his bright hued paintings of childlike female figures. His father was an author of children’s books during the cultural revolutions and Liu Ye would often create illustrations for these books. He would also hide banned children’s books in a black chest, including titles such as Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tales.
Auction Record (2013) : US$ 4,773,000
Average Auction Sales Price (2015) : US$ 520,650
Xu Bing (1955)
Xu Bing was born in Chongqing but grew up mainly in Beijing. He began his studies in the printmaking department at the renowned Central Academy of Fine Arts in 1977. After earning a BA in 1981 and an MFA in 1987 he went onto produce one of his best known works, Book from the Sky (1987 – 1991), earning XU Bing international recognition in the 1980s. The work is a massive installation made up of hundreds of volumes and scrolls printed with 4,000 imagined Chinese characters, which were cut by hand into wood printing blocks.
Auction Record (2015): US$ 1,639,000
Average Auction Sales Price (2015): US$ 219,124
Yu Youhan (1943)
Yu Youhan was born in Shanghai in 1943 and graduated from the Central Academy of Art & Design, Beijing in 1970. Yu then went on to teach at the Shanghai Institute of Industrial Arts from 1973. After visiting an exhibition by Zao Wou-ki in Hangzhou he began to paint abstract works during the 1980s, but shifted away from this during the 1990s painting a series of bright, Andy Warhol styled images of Mao Zedong, which garnered international acclaim.
Since the early 2000s Yu has returned to abstract paintings, exploring more traditional Chinese landscape painting whilst applying his own style.
Auction Record (2018) : US$ 1,656,615
Average Auction Sales Price (2015) : US$ 359,441
Zeng Fanzhi (1964)
Zeng Fanzhi studied oil painting at the Hubei Academy of Fine Arts, where he was strongly influenced by German Expressionism, which is evident in many of his works. His work has been shown in museums and galleries around the world, and in 2008 his Mask Series 1996 No. 6 became the highest grossing work by a Contemporary Asian artist to that date.
Auction Record (2013): US$ 20,640,000
Average Auction Sales Price (2015): US$ 633,166
Tax Relief Free Consultaion
Solo Arte offer a free consultation to investors who wish to off set the purchase of art against their personal/company tax.
This tax benefit is available under the Wear and Tear allowance under section s284 of the Finance Act 1997.
Solo Arte sell original fine works of investment art, sourced directly from the artist.