In today's art market, modern painting masters who can repeatedly create sky-high prices should be the first to promote Qi Baishi, but Qi Baishi's painting price is not always so high, and there is also a process of ups and downs during the period.
In 1889, Qi Baishi began to study painting with Hu Qinyuan to make a living. In those years, he traveled back and forth around Xiangtan to give portraits, generally priced at two to four pieces of silver, coupled with the enthusiastic promotion of his teachers and friends such as Wang Xiangqi and Hu Qinyuan.
Subsequently, his orders for landscape figures, flowers, birds and insects also increased, and the price of paintings also increased. In 1902, Fan Zengxiang, a famous scholar in Shaanxi, sealed and engraved three golds per word for him, and until 1918, his run example did not change dramatically.
In 1917, Qi Baishi decided to go north to avoid soldiers and bandits, and officially settled in Beijing in 1919 and began a life of "north drift". However, when he first arrived in Beijing, his life was not smooth, and Qi Baishi's cold painting style of nearly "Eight Greats" made him feel cold in the Beijing painting world, and he was even attacked by people calling it "Wild Fox Zen", and the price of a fan was two silver dollars, only half of other painters.
Fortunately, under the guidance of Chen Shi, he began to "decay and change the law" at the age of 58, and finally created his own safflower ink leaf school. In order to better open the market, in 1921, Qi Baishi also specially asked Wu Changshuo to personally fix Runge for him: "... Lithographs are binary per word. The whole sheet is four feet twelve dollars, eight feet eighteen dollars, six feet twenty-four dollars, eight feet thirty dollars, and those who have passed eight feet are discussed separately. The screen strip halves the entire sheet. The landscape is doubled, and the workers are discussed separately. Albums are $6 per piece. Folding fan same. Hand-rolled negotiable. ”
Qi Baishi Ke Guilin Manuscript Ink and Pencil on Paper, 33.5cm×40.5cm, 1905, Beijing Academy of Painting
In the late spring of 1922, Chen Shi took the works of Qi Baishi and others to the Japanese exhibition, and the works exhibited were sold out and his reputation was greatly enhanced. Since then, his paintings have gradually gained market recognition, and the price of paintings has risen dozens of times compared with when he first arrived in Beijing.
In the early 1930s, Qi Baishi re-made a detailed runge for his paintings: "Flower banners, two feet ten yuan, three feet fifteen yuan, four feet thirty yuan, one foot wide above." Five feet thirty yuan, six feet forty-five yuan, eight feet seventy-two yuan, above the whole paper folio. The nave is doubled, and the banner is not painted. The album is six dollars per page within eight inches and eight dollars within one foot. Fan surface, two feet wide is ten yuan, one foot five inches within eight yuan, small one does not draw. If there is a person who has written first, the ink of the brush is permeable to the handwriting, and no compensation will be made. Where the painting is not inscribed, the person who inscribes the money adds ten yuan..." Compared with ten years ago, the price of the painting has increased several times.
In 1946, due to inflation and the depreciation of the legal tender, although Qi Baishi's paintings rose to 1 foot and 20,000 yuan, the income from selling the paintings was not enough to buy bags of flour.
Qi Baishi Bamboo Cave from Linlin Borrowing Mountain Album Color on Paper 25.5cm×20cm, 1927 China Academy of Art
At the beginning of the founding of New China, Qi Baishi's works were basically sold by state-run art stores such as Beijing Rongbaozhai and Shanghai Duoyunxuan, and the general purchase price was about five or six yuan to ten yuan, and the price of private purchase was about ten yuan. After the reform and opening up, the domestic "ban" policy on the sale and purchase of art has shown some signs of loosening, some collectors with a keen sense of "smell" have begun to consciously collect a large number of Qi Baishi's paintings, and a large number of Hong Kong and Taiwan tourists, art collectors and operators have also come to the mainland to "treasure hunting".
The first large-scale outflow of modern and contemporary Chinese painting and calligraphy began, and the price of Qi Baishi's paintings first appeared in Hong Kong. From 1980 to 1983, Qi Baishi's works were auctioned in Hong Kong every season and every field, and the maximum price of a single piece was 50,000. From 1987 to 1988, of the 82 Qi Baishi works auctioned by Hong Kong Jiatude and Sotheby's, 18 were sold for more than 100,000 yuan, 6 were more than 200,000, and 2 were more than 300,000. Among them, Qi Baishi's "Flowers and Fruits" four screens were auctioned for a high price of 1.8 million Hong Kong dollars.
After 1994, the domestic art market began to gradually become active, and major auction houses invariably regarded Qi Baishi's works as the main object of collection, and the price of Qi Baishi's works also rose rapidly, gradually becoming a banner symbolizing the prosperity and decline of the modern art market. In 1994, China Guardian held its first autumn auction, and all 29 qi Baishi works on the auction were sold, and the "Landscape" album was also auctioned for 5.17 million yuan.
According to statistics, from 2000 to June 2018, Qi Baishi's works were auctioned for a total of 11,661 pieces, with a total transaction volume of 76%, and 282 pieces of more than 10 million yuan. Among them, the 1925 "Twelve Screens of Landscape and Water" was auctioned by Beijing Poly for 931.5 million yuan in 2017, becoming the most expensive Chinese artwork in the world.
Qi Baishi Landscape Twelve Screens
In 1925, Qi Baishi had a serious illness, and he did not know about it for seven days and nights, and he could sit down after half a month. Chen Zilin, a doctor who often visited the door to see officials and nobles, also came to the door to receive treatment for Qi Baishi's pulse, and after his illness, it coincided with Chen Zilin's 50th birthday painting, so he specially produced "Twelve Screens of Landscape and Water" for him.
No one would have thought that after 92 years, "Twelve Screens of Landscape and Water" would become by far the most expensive Asian artwork on the global art market.
What would be the fate of Qi Baishi's ill student before the 1922 Japanese Painting Exhibition? It may not be to fall into the poverty of Van Gogh and Modigliani and commit suicide, but the temple of the art world and Vanity Fair are likely to have no Qi Baishi.
Qi Baishi Early Years Flower and Bird Album Guardian 2014 Spring Auction Sold for 9.2 million yuan
Like almost all modern Chinese painting artists, they like to give paintings to dignitaries and literati, these paintings later fell into the world in various ways, and the stories behind them will be a necessary element of the sky-high price of art works.
It was like a child whose bones were not at all strange, but who had a great desire for martial arts. In the first half of his life, he painstakingly cultivated a martial art. However, when he found that what he already had had had become an obstacle to his ideals, he was able to make up his mind to abolish martial arts and start from scratch until he became a true master of the world.