It's high time that Chinese art collectors get surreal
Mainlanders have grown more sophisticated in their art and are showing more interest in the works of surrealist painters such as Salvador Dali and René Magritte
Surrealism is the next big dream for Chinese art collectors.
After several years of being attracted to multimillion-dollar paintings by renowned artists such as Pablo Picasso and Claude Monet they are now widening their focus, say auction houses.
India Phillips, head of Impressionist and modern art at Bonhams, based in London, says Chinese collectors have moved on from acquiring trophy pieces that cost about US$7.5 million to nurturing a deeper and more nuanced taste in European art.
“Interest in surrealist artists like [Salvador] Dali and [René] Magritte has gone up over the past year,” Phillips tells the South China Morning Post.
In the past she saw hardly any mainland Chinese buyers bidding at New York and London sales of Impressionist and modern art, she says.
Interest in Western masters started spawning a potential market among mainland Chinese collectors in the late 2000s when auction houses, including Est-Ouest Auctions from Japan and Seoul Auction, began selling their pieces in Hong Kong.
