First Chinese artist honored U.S. Sport Artist of Year

Sculptor Yuan Xikun has become the first Chinese artist to be honored Sport Artist of the Year award by the United States Sports Academy here on Thursday.

    The academy trustee and art committee chairman Jack Scharr presented the award to Yuan Thursday at the Beijing Jintai Art Museum.

    "Yuan is very much deserving this award for his dedication to the Olympics and sports," Scharr told Xinhua.

    "We chose to do it during the 2008 Olympic year to honor China and Yuan with this great award," he added.

    Touring around the museum, Scharr didn't save his praises on every sculpture he saw, especially the sculpture of Pierr de Coubertin, the founder of the Modern Olympic Games which sculpted by Yuan in 2006.

    "Coubertin is the representative of the modern day of Olympic Games and it's wonderful that he is honored like that sculpture," Scharr said.

    Yuan told Xinhua that he has made a copy of the sculpture of Coubertin and will send it to Swiss for the International Olympic Committee to collect.

    Yuan, 64, director of the museum, is one of the top Chinese sculptor and has won plenty of prizes both national and international. He is also a member of the Standing Committee of Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC).

2008-04-20

Deceased artist Chen Yifei memorial opens

The memorial of Chen Yifei, one of China's most acclaimed painters who died three years ago, opened this weekend in the artist's hometown of Ningbo City in southeast China's Zhejiang Province.

    The 750-square-meter memorial houses replicas of Chen's canvass paintings, sculptures and his fashion designs works, said Li Qixin, deputy bureau chief of the local tourism board.

    "It is a pity that we don't have an authentic art piece of master Chen so far, but we will exhibit some of items used by the master in the memorial, which has been designated as a tourist spot in the city," said Li.

    One of Chen's canvasses was auctioned in Hong Kong at 1.37 million HK dollars (162,000 U.S. dollars) in 1991, setting a record price for contemporary Chinese painting then. The price of Chen's painting skyrocketed after his death, with the highest record set at 1.6 million U.S. dollars at a Shanghai auction in 2006.

    Chen, long suffering from stomach ulcer pains related to exhaustion and work stress, died of gastric hemorrhage on April 10,2005 at the age of 59, when he was filming a feature movie named the Barber in Zhejiang.

    Chen, also dubbed as "a commercially successful painter and visual artist," created life-style brands bearing his own name and Shanghai-based high-end fashion empire in the years after he came back from the United States in 1990.

Contemporary Chinese artist fetches 8 mln USD at HK auction

A painting by 45-year-old Chinese painter Liu Xiaodong fetched 61.93 million HK dollars (7. 94 million U.S. dollars) on Wednesday at Sotheby's spring auctions in Hong Kong, setting the artist's personal record.

    Bidders at the contemporary Chinese art sessions started bidding for Liu's "Battlefield Realism: The 18 Arhats" at more than 30 million HK dollars and slowly pushed the price up to 55 million HK dollars.

    The hammer price, with buyer's premium included, for the set portraits dated 2004 was 61.93 million HK dollars, the artist's highest price at auction and one of the highest prices for a single work of any contemporary Chinese artist.

    A painting by the late master Xu Beihong fetched 72 million HK dollars at Sotheby's spring auctions last year in Hong Kong, setting the record for the most expensive single painting by any contemporary Chinese artist.

    Liu was more than once in the headlines over the past several years as paintings by his contemporaries got ever more expensive both in China and abroad.

    One of his paintings depicting a group of grassroots individuals in contemporary China made a sensation in late 2006 when it fetched 22 million yuan (3.14 million U.S. dollars), although the price had been topped by numerous other items since then.

    Often labeled a neo-realist, Liu was one of a group of artists active in China. Like most others in this group, he was born in the 1960s.

    "Bloodline: The Big Family Number 3", in the typical family photo style of artist Zhang Xiaogang, was bought by a private collector from Taiwan at 47.37 million HK dollars (6.07 million U.S. dollars), making it the second most expensive painting in the three contemporary Chinese art sessions of Sotheby's spring auction Wednesday.

    It was also the biggest price ever fetched by the artist at auction.

    Sotheby's said the total prices of 393 million HK dollars (50. 38 million U.S. dollars) fetched by over 200 sold items were much higher than previous estimates.

    "The Forbidden City", by the late Guo Bochuan and dated 1946, fetched 27.21 million HK dollars (3.49 million U.S. dollars), while "Take the Plunge", by avant-guard Yue Minjun and dated 2002,got 20.49 million HK dollars (2.63 million U.S. dollars).

    "The Living Word" by Xu Bing was sold at 7.61 million HK dollars (9.76 million U.S. dollars), also the highest price for the artist at auction.

    Sotheby's spring auctions in Hong Kong, also offering southeast Asian art and Islamic art, lasts from April 8 to 11. (7.8 HK dollars = 1 U.S. dollar)