Asnet Art Gallery （亚讯画廊） 3rd Anniversary messaage

It was a bit late to celebrate the 3rd Anniversary of Asnet Art Gallery （亚讯画廊）, which should have be made 6 months ago.　No wards are needed. Presenting the recent paintings of the owner of Asnet Art Gallery （亚讯画廊店主）are considered to be a right thing to celebrate the 3rd Anniversary.


 Asnet Art Gallery owner's best 10 paintings made in 2014.

 

AAG

Robert Hatfield Ellsworth Collection - Pan Tianshou (潘天寿)

At Christie’s Hong Kong 2014 Autumn Auctions (20-26 NOVEMBER 2014) went with the exhibition of Robert Hatfield Ellsworth collection.

The exhibited objects and works of Robert Hatfield Ellsworth collection were not many and included Chinese antiques (stones, etc), some Ming dynasty furniture and two modern Chinese paintings. This American collector's eyes, in terms of Chinese paintings, are supposed to be similar to my eyes. The exhibited two paintings were: one is a flower painting of Pan Tianshou (潘天寿) and the other one is a landscape painting of Shi Lu (石鲁). The sizes of these two paintings are similar and relatively large (about 1.0m wide and 1.5 meter high). Though not top level work of each painter (the top level works must be in some museums) but not failure at all. I respected Robert Hatfield Ellsworth with surprise as these two painters have been ranked as No. 1 and No. 2 in my personal greatest modern Chinese painters' list, not Zhang Daqian, Qi Baishi or some other well known great modern Chinese painters whose paintings, hundreds of them, were exhibited at the prime locations of Christie’s Autumn Auctions very large apace preview gallery. I found only one small Shi Lu painting and also one small Pan Tianshou painting in this Christie’s quite large preview gallery.

I briefly introduced Shi Lu in the other Post as a very versatile painter and as a still very much under appreciated great modern Chinese painter and his paintings being still very much undervalued.

Pan Tianshou is not so very versatile as Shi Lu. Pan Tianshou was a professor at Hangzhou Art School and wrote many books - very good books mostly and his paintings reflect well what he wrote. He talked a lot of the importance of composition in the paintings. His paintings made after his 40's - 50's (see Note) show almost perfect or at least very well-thought composition - every thing including Chinese letters and chops being put in one painting has its proper position, size and direction and maybe color. This is not easy to do. And probably this is a reason why Pan Tianshou's paintings are not so versatile as Shi Lu's paintings. As being a professor, having written many books on paintings it is not easy to make perfect or should-be paintings as he said. Unless he were an art professor and had written how the Chinese paintings should be in his books his works would have been more versatile because less restriction. Pan Tianshou can be compared with Matisse in some ways.

(Note)
His young age paintings (say in his 20's - 30's) are not so distinctively good. 


















AAG

Affordable Art Fair in Hong Kong

It is evident that Hong Kong has recently become one of the biggest art hubs in terms of sales of arts maybe after London and New York and doubtlessly No. 1 in Asia.

I visited the 2nd "Affordable Art Fair in Hong Kong (HK$1,000 - 100,000 or US$128 - 12,800)" held in Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre on 21-23th March, 2014. I had a biased idea from the title "Affordable Art Fair" -  a mini version of Art Basel Hong Kong and some expectation. Yes, it was a mini version of Art Basel Hong Kong in terms of the size but neatly organized, a lot better than the messy Art Basel Hong Kong in 2013, which I hope will be improved this year (15-18 th May, 2014 also in Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre). Meanwhile the expectation was happily proved to be wrong. I had expected mediocre works instead of very good works.The followings are the facts I encountered and what I thought about it after the visit.  I spent about two hours there - fairly enough when considering the size.

1. The exhibited works are principally very good ones, not mediocre ones, when considering the pricing.

2. The exhibited works are Contemporary Arts and most of them (say more than 90%) are paintings of various paiting media - Oil, Watercolor, Acryle, Collages, etc, etc and Traditional China origin paintings were few. Considering the recent rapid upward valuation of the Chinese Modern and Contemporary paitings of  the well known painters the exhibition gave me a good opportunity to think about the real values of good paintings.

3. The exhibited works are not solely exhibited but you can buy instantly after the show if you book, not through auction.

4. The exhibitors are not worldly well known auction houses and galleries but well selected mid size galleries.

5. The exhibitors are fairly international including Japan, South Korea(*), China (Beijing), Hong Kong(*), Macao, Philippines, Australia, Vietnam, Singapore(*), Thailand, Israel, Italy, France, Belgium, UK(*), Spain, South Africa, Canada, USA (roughly from East to West) - (*) relatively many.

6. Unlike the name (Affordable Art Fair) suggested generally not so sales or money oriented and more like an Art Exhibition by mid size galleries. A place to enjoy arts rather than to make some business.

7. You can talk with gallery staff and get information from them on the works / artists which / who you find interest in. Most of them are well trained and informative.

8. The brochure given at the entrance is small but nicely designed and gives you useful information.
 

AAG