| Dear Jian Shuo,
I was looking around www.bonhams.com and saw that in an upcoming auction the authorities of San Francisco are selling a gift given by to them by the Mayor of Shanghai. Bloody rude if you ask me. It is the magnificent painting Grapevine by master Zhu Qizhan. It was in the SF airport and is great. They want USD30,000, probably to spend on modern rubbish that could be painted by a chimp. If they don't want it, maybe we should ask for it back. Disgusted. Martin www.bonhams.com Lot No: 2226W Property of the San Francisco Arts Commission, sold to benefit future acquisitions Zhu Qizhan (1892-1996): Grapevine. Monumental painting in ink and color on paper, framed and glazed in UF3/ultra-violet screened frame; the upper right with a poem of Qingteng (Xu Wei, 1521-1593), dated renxu (1982), inscribed 'painted at Meihua Caotang in Shanghai', signed 'Zhu Qizhan at the age of ninety-one', with four artist's seals reading Loujiang Zhushi, Qizhan, Meihua Caotang and xinbi zhihui. Dimensions 140 x 53in (356 x 135cm) Estimate: $30,000 to 50,000 Footnote: Provenance: this painting was presented by Wang Daohan, Mayor of Shanghai to Diane Feinstein, Mayor of San Francisco in 1983. It was installed on July 12, 1983 at San Francisco International Airport and was exhibited there for about ten years. Since January 1980, San Francisco and Shanghai have been Sister Cities. In 1981, the Shanghai Friendship Committee, with the encouragement and endorsement from the Mayor of San Francisco, recommended to the joint committee of the Airport Commission and the Arts Commission that paintings by Shanghai artists be commissioned for the International Terminal at the San Francisco Airport. This marked the first formal association between cities in China and the United States. |
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