The ongoing round of autumn auctions held in China have seen Wu Guanzhong emerge as the most welcomed artist in the Chinese art market among Chinese artists who are alive.

The 85-year-old studied oil painting at the National Art Academy of France for three years in the 1940s, returned to China in 1950 and became an art educator.

"Chinese art collectors, who shift more and more of their attention from ancient to contemporary art, have reached a consensus that there is roughly no risk in collecting Wu's art," said Liu Shangyong, vice-general-manager of the Rongbao Auction House, one of the five major art auctioneers in Beijing.

Last month his oil painting, Beijing Snow, was sold at the autumn auction of the China Guardian Auction Co for 3.63 million yuan (US$437,000), a record price for Wu's oil paintings.

Wu's oil and traditional Chinese paintings have been highlights in autumn auctions of the five major art auctioneers in Beijing, namely China Guardian, China Sungari, Hanhai, Huachen and Rongbao.

Rongbao, the last of the five to hit the hammer this autumn, is to present 20 representative colored ink paintings by Wu in the collection of a foreign museum at its autumn auction.

The auction is to take place on December 18 and 19 at the Asia Hotel in Beijing, and a three-day pre-auction exhibition of free entry is to be given at the hotel starting today.

The auction house, an affiliate of the three-century-old art dealer Rongbaozhai, is distinguished among other auctioneers for its focus on 20th-century traditional Chinese paintings.

Among its more than 800 lots to go under the hammer, highlights include large works by such big names as Xu Beihong (1895-1953), Qi Baishi (1864-1957), Huang Binhong (1864-1955) and Huang Zhou (1925-97).

"Among contemporary Chinese paintings, Wu's have been the most sought after by auctioneers and gallery owners," said Liu.

"The price of Wu's art has doubled in the past three months, and the seemingly dramatic price hike is actually a reasonable one as it results from the Chinese collectors' better involvement in the international art market."

He added that Wu's paintings have been welcomed in foreign art markets since the early 1980s, and Chinese collectors are finding them, especially those he created in the 1970s and 1980s, beautiful and interesting.

But Chinese collectors do not appreciate Wu's more abstract art created in the last decade, as they show no interest in Chinese vanguard artist Xu Bing and Cai Guoqiang's works, which have been pursued in the New York art market.

Wu is popular both at home and abroad because he, like his teacher Lin Fengmian (1900-1991), has focused on the combination of "Western and Chinese styles" in his creations, teaching and research.

(China Daily December 15, 2004)