Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic At Sotheby’s modern and contemporary evening auction in London earlier this month, a Picasso painting that hit the auction block for the first time in 40 years was snapped up by an Asian private collector. “Buste de femme” (1953), a portrait of Françoise Gilot, the artist who was Picasso’s partner and muse, sold for £4.3mn after fees.It was not the first time an Asian collector had placed the winning bid for a Picasso at a major auction in the west. At a 2013 Christie’s New York sale, the 1950 painting “Claude et Paloma” sold for $28.2mn to Chinese conglomerate Dalian Wanda Group.The headline-grabbing bidder was Rebecca Wei, founder of Hong Kong-based art advisory firm Wei and Associates and former chair of Christie’s Asia. Recalling the sale, Wei describes it as a turning point in recognising Picasso’s market potential in China. Yet his reputation there long predates his rise in the Asian art market. Though Picasso never travelled to Asia, he was already known in east Asia as early as the 1910s, according to Doryun Chong, artistic director and chief curator of M+ museum in Hong Kong. Chong has co-curated the museum’s current blockbuster show Picasso for Asia: A Conversation — the first major exhibition of the artist in Hong Kong in more than a decade. It displays more than 60 works on loan from the Musée national Picasso-Paris, including “The Acrobat” (1930), “Portrait of Dora Maar” (1937) and his anti-war painting “Massacre in Korea” (1951) — placed in dialogue with 80 pieces from the M+ collections. Alongside the show, Taiwanese-American artist Lee Mingwei has planned an installation and performance at M+ that recreates Picasso’s “Guernica” (1937) in coloured sand.Research for the exhibition conducted by Hester Chan, curator of collections at M+, revealed that China gave a warm welcome to Picasso’s art not long after he was introduced to Japan in 1913 via a local art journal (which reproduced his 1909 cubist painting Woman with a Mandolin). By 1918 he had become part of the curriculum of Republican-era Chinese art education. His works were exhibited for the first time in China the following year. Joining the French Communist Party earned Picasso favour in China. However, during the Cultural Revolution, he and other western artists were denounced as ‘poisonous weeds’Picasso also had several notable encounters with China’s leading cultural lights. Cai Yuanpei, the renowned Chinese education reformer, met him in his studio in the early 1900s and saw parallels between Picasso’s “creative distortion of nature” and the painting philosophies of Northern Song dynasty poet and calligrapher Su Dongpo. In 1956, he was gifted prints by Chinese artist Qi Baishi and hosted Zhang Daqian, dubbed the “Picasso of China”, at his home in Cannes.Joining the French Communist Party in 1944 earned the artist favour when the communists came to power in China five years later. However, during the Cultural Revolution, Picasso and other western artists were denounced as “poisonous weeds”. He was later rehabilitated, hailed as an inspiration for young artists in the 1980s. Meanwhile, Hong Kong, then a British colony, remained a conduit for Picasso’s influence, hosting an exhibition of his prints in 1974. In the 1980s, Picasso exhibitions were held in Hong Kong and mainland China, but museum shows remained scarce. This began to change in the 2000s when China emerged as an art market powerhouse, fuelled by its economic boom. Commercial players, rather than institutions, took the lead in promoting the artist.Patti Wong, former chair of Sotheby’s International, recalls that a small group of collectors from Asia began to show interest in New York and London impressionist and modern art auctions in the early 2000s, and the house started to bring highlights to Hong Kong. In 2010 she teamed up with fellow Sotheby’s executive Daryl Wickstrom (who later became co-founder of her advisory firm Patti Wong and Associates), to stage Modern Masters in Hong Kong, the region’s first big selling exhibition dedicated to modern and impressionist art, “as a launch pad to introduce private sales to buyers in mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan”. “It was a pioneering move,” says Wong. The work on the cover of the exhibition catalogue, a 1939 portrait of Picasso’s muse and artist Dora Maar titled “Jeune fille aux cheveux noirs”, became the first work sold from this exhibition. The emerging market for high-value Picasso works coincided with a series of major exhibitions touring China. Between 2011 and 2012, works from the Musée National Picasso-Paris were exhibited in Shanghai, Chengdu and then Hong Kong. Opportunities to own a trophy Picasso work had great appeal to the nouveau riche in China. Christie’s sold the first Picasso painting at auction in mainland China during its inaugural sale in Shanghai in 2013. “Homme assis”, a relatively small work (28.7cm x 56.6cm) painted in 1969, sold for $1.5mn to a local Chinese collector. In 2016, Chinese auction house Poly sold “Woman under the Light (Jacqueline)” (1962) for $8.47mn in Shanghai.Participation from Asia in New York and London salerooms grew significantly. One example was the sale of “Femme au chignon dans un fauteuil” (1948), for $29.9mn to Chinese movie mogul Wang Zhongjun in May 2015 at Sotheby’s New York. But rather than rushing Picasso works to Hong Kong auctions, the house carefully cultivated the Greater China market. “We could gauge quite accurately which pictures would generate bidding interest from Asian collectors,” Wong says. “The knowledge of ‘Asian taste’ gave us the confidence to pitch European and American collectors to consign to sales in Hong Kong.”Sotheby’s offered a Picasso to its Hong Kong evening sale for the first time in March 2018 — eight years after Modern Masters. A small (22.2cm x 35.7cm) colourful painting “Juan-les-Pins” (1924) sold for $1mn. In 2019, Beijing’s UCCA staged Picasso — Birth of a Genius, attracting a record number of 328,701 visitors. However, the scarcity of museum presentations means many Chinese collectors rely on auction previews and gallery exhibitions to see Picasso’s work first-hand.M+’s Doryun Chong acknowledges that auction previews and commercial shows have an important part to play — and can attract crowds curious about what makes Picasso famous and his work so expensive. “But some are genuinely interested in Picasso’s art. These free exhibitions are also learning experiences,” he says.Public institutions, on the other hand, are shouldered with bigger responsibilities for educating a wider public through research-driven exhibitions. The current Picasso exhibition at M+, which places him in dialogue with works from the collection by artists of Asian heritage (such as Isamu Noguchi, Wifredo Lam, Gu Dexin, Nalini Malani and Haegue Yang) as well as new commissions by Simon Fujiwara and Sin Wai Kin, is a case in point. “It is about Picasso plus what Picasso represents as archetypes — the genius, the outsider, the magician and the apprentice,” Chong says, noting that Asian artists can also be examined through these archetypes. “Their work can also be given new meanings and high relevance to Picasso.” Meanwhile, the hunt for the next best Picasso work continues on the art market. Wei, who has sold multiple Picasso paintings to Asian collectors, still receives regular enquiries. Brightly coloured cubist portraits are among the most sought-after, she notes. Unlike works by Van Gogh or Monet, which are scarce, Picasso’s vast oeuvre — spanning paintings, works on paper, sculpture and ceramics — offers collectors opportunities across price ranges.“For many Chinese collectors, Picasso is a highly sought-after western artist they aspire to collect,” Wei says, noting that the artist’s colourful trajectory and artistic achievements continue to fascinate art lovers. “Picasso’s work brings joy. With dedication and expert guidance, owning a Picasso can be within reach.”Vivienne Chow is Artnet’s London Correspondent and co-founder of Artnet Pro’s newsletter The Asia PivotPicasso for Asia: A Conversation is at M+, Hong Kong, to July 13, mplus.org.hkFind out about our latest stories first — follow FT Weekend on Instagram and X, and sign up to receive the FT Weekend newsletter every Saturday morning
