Sotheby's has once again been commissioned by Baron and Baroness Guy and Myriam Ullens de Schooten – well-known collectors – to offer two important works by Chinese artists at auction: Red Flag 1 (1971), a realistic work of Chen Yifei, and The Last Supper (2001) one of most significant works of Zeng Fanzhi. They will be offered at auction by Sotheby's in Hong Kong during of the 40th Anniversary Evening Sale, Saturday 5 October 2013, an auction in which an exceptional set of pieces will be offered.
Red Flag 1 by Chen Yifei is estimated at 5.8 – 7.7 million dollars. The Last Supper by Zeng Fanzhi is valued at $10.3 million, also in consideration of the results achieved in recent auctions by Zeng Fanzhi, who for example made 9.660.023 dollars for a painting from Mask series.
Each of the works appears for the first time at auction. For this reason, they represent an unprecedented opportunity for the most demanding collectors from all over the world, giving them the possibility of acquiring alarm clocks of true icons of modern and contemporary Chinese art.
Baron and Baroness Guy Ullens of Schooten are passionate about the development of contemporary art in China, and have been supporters of emerging young artists for 25 years. Their art collection is one of the most comprehensive collections of its kind in the world, covering a wide range of periods, schools and movements, as well as media. It encapsulates the evolution of creative ideologies and artistic dialogues of modern and contemporary Chinese art from the 1970s to the present. The Guy & Myriam Ullens Foundation was founded in Switzerland in 2002, and has since sponsored exhibitions of contemporary Chinese art in Europe and China as well as granting loans of artworks from their collection to museums around the world. Since then, the collection has expanded and diversified, and today has nearly 1000 works of art, not only from China but also from many other regions of the world, with a particular focus on emerging contemporary artists from China, Asia, United States and the Middle East.
Patti Wong, President of Asia Sotheby's, said: “Sotheby's has had a long history of working with Guy and Myriam Ullens, notably including the two record-breaking sales of properties from the Ullens Collection in Hong Kong in 2011. This year in 2013, we celebrate our 40th anniversary in Asia and we are very honored to have again from Ullens two very important works – a rare work by Chen Yifei political realist: Red Flag I, and one of the most important works by Zeng Fanzhi, L 'Last Supper – each of which represents not only the display of the history of the Chinese nation through works of art, but also the Ullens' vision and passion for Chinese art of different eras. The offer is undoubtedly to be considered unprecedented, given the quality of these works with a museum character”.
Chen Yifei (1946 – 2005) Red Flag I , oil on canvas – 1.971 , 300 x 158,5 cm
Estimate in dollars USD 5.8-7.700.000
The painting is animated by a revolutionary political concept and dates from the early years of the artist's career, who rose to fame in 1980, after his departure for the United States. The work is to be considered something exceptional both for the year in which it was created and for the content it expresses and the quality that distinguishes it.
By 1970, however, Chen Yifei had already established himself in Shanghai, becoming the director of oil painting and sculpture department of the Shanghai Art Institute, despite being only 24 years old. Between 1970 and 1979, Chen produced a number of paintings with political themes, among them Pathbreaker in collaboration with Wei Jingshan, currently part of the collection of the National Art Museum of China.
The current large format Red Flag 1 from 1971 is rich in a style referring to Russian socialist realism, which exerted a dominant influence on the Chinese art scene of the group to which the artist belonged, which served precisely for Chen's artistic training before go abroad. It depicts Chinese People's Liberation Army soldiers raising a red flag inside the trench, preparing to charge forward and initiate an attack.
The second work is by Zeng Fanzhi ( b. 1964) The last supper, oil on canvas, 2001 220 x 400 cm
The work perhaps represents the high point of Zeng's artistic career. Executed in 2001, it is the largest work in the "Mask Series": the canvas measures 4 meters in width and 2,2 meters in height. The painting was acquired by Baron and Baroness Guy and Myriam Ullens de Schooten in the year following its creation and has remained in their collection to this day.
Zeng for this painting was inspired by Leonardo Da Vinci's Last Supper, the original mural work almost 9 meters long and placed in the refectory of the monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan.
It can be seen as a metaphor for China's rapid economic development, while the red scarves represent the ideal of communism. Looking closely, we see that the figure of Judas in the original work has been replaced by a masked figure wearing a golden yellow tie. For Zeng, this would mean the dream of moving away from the communist ideal into a new era. He once expressed, “The yellow-gold tie represents money, and, in essence, Western capitalism. It's only after 1980 that we started seeing people wearing ties in China." The symbolism of the tie undoubtedly identifies the changes taking place and within Chinese society. The Chinese calligraphic scrolls on the two walls as well as the deep red hues of the watermelon represent the Chinese nation. The Last Supper boldly encapsulates the transforming fabric of Chinese society in the course of economic reform in the 1990s.
The artist moved from Wuhan to Beijing in the early 1990s and it was there that he began working on the Mask series in 1994. A series that aims to explore the state of human existence, revealing the need for a deceptive aspect in modern society, represented precisely with a stylized mask. Through this series, the artist has documented the psychological distress of the Chinese people under the ten-year long economic reforms in China. In terms of technique, the Mask series saw a transformation from a generally brown color palette of the 1990s to a more refined artistic style in the 2000s.
Works of this caliber rarely make it to market and it is difficult to predict the value of The Last Supper. It is possible, however, that it exceeds 10 million dollars.
