The collection was assembled during the 1960s when works by the artist were fresh to the market and making waves, and China was at the height of the Cultural Revolution.
The artist, Fu Baoshi, bucked the tide of the revolution while helping create a very national style of landscape paintings. It had two of his seals attached.
The artist is of special interest to Australia as a forerunner of a kind of semi-abstract expressionism with a splatter technique much akin to that of Jackson Pollock whose signature work Blue Poles almost brought down the Whitlam Government after its controversial purchase in 1973.
The work sold at Bonhams could well have been painted by a drunk, as the artist liked to be emotionally and physically present in his work by being inebriated when he painted.
If so, he was a quiet drunk, as the work is a very seductive view of mountains and waterfalls. Monochromatic, it does not display his later enthusiasm for introducing colour into his paintings.
The auction record for Fu Baoshi appears to be $S47.2 million (Singapore dollars) ($Au45.1 approx) in 2016 for a large scroll fully attributed to Fu Baoshi. That work, done in 1954 was The God of Cloud and Great Lord of Fate, 114 cm by 315 cm, while the work sold in Sydney measured 177 cm by 56.5 cm.
The buyer who made the winning bid was not present at the Sydney auction and had to compete with buyers on the telephone and Internet. .
Bonhams, to be on the conservative side, decided to let the market find its own level. Bidding sorted out which buyers thought it might be clearly by the artists, and those that were satisfied with the “attributed" tag.
This lot, and three others which soared above estimates helped the auction house clear its estimates for the whole sale of between $447,000 and $670,000 spectacularly. The gross, including buyers’ premium, was $4.9 million.
The offering in Sydney was only part of the collection, the remainder being consigned to Bonhams Hong Kong to be sold early in November.
It must have been difficult to divide the collection between Sydney and Hong Kong, but consigning some of the better works to Sydney was very diplomatic, as it provided exposure that could have mitigated against the suggestion that Bonhams was here to plunder the heritage – even if none of the works would have remained in Australia.
Buyers also seem to appreciate the brand status of Bonhams and Sotheby’s, the former now being supported by the genial Edward Wilkinson who is related to the Badgery family and is now a senior executive with Bonhams Hong Kong, specialising in Himalayan works of art.
The two other lots which aroused special interest were Galloping Horse, 1933 which made $732,000 IBP, attributed to Xu Beihong (1895-1953) and was a familiar image by this artist.
And a painting of an 11th century scholar, Tao Yuanming, also by Fu Baoshi – however this time fully attributed - made $183,000 IBP. Old men with sticks are obviously welcome subject matter in the Chinese market. The delightful sketch demonstrated the difference between Western ideas of the aged, compared with European.
Another scroll, Waterfall, also “attributed” to Fu Baoshi sold for $183,000 IBP.
