Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Rare Chinese £20k art in student digs
PAINTINGS destined for the walls of a student flat turned out to be rare Chinese art worth £20,000.
The three pictures were handed down through family but the current owner did not like them.
He was preparing to use them to decorate a student flat he owns when a valuer discovered their worth.
They are the work of Qi Baishi, whose art is highly sought-after among collectors in his native China.
Expert Alexander Clement found them at a house in Barlaston, Staffs.
He said: “The paintings were purchased in London in the 1950s.”
The paintings of flowers, will go under the hammer on September 24.
Baishi died in 1957 and in 2017 one of his works sold for £107million.
tour when he was still married to first wife Thelma Riley. Sharon, who was Ozzy’s manager at the time, admitted he had never showed any romantic interest in her before they spent their first night together, and she had assumed it would be just a one-night stand.
However, the couple are still togeth er aft er 38 years of marriage despite a series of dramas which even included a murder attempt by Ozzy.
The West Midlands-born rocker also spoke of his regrets about cheating on Thelma, who he married in 1971 and with whom he fathered two kids, as he revelled in his wild lifestyle. He said: “I was on television, radio, people recognised me and chicks wanted me. It was wow. From being a grubby little s**t from Aston – this is the big time. We lived the life.
“I thought money would buy and fix everything. But money would buy the alcohol and the drugs, and I would behave badly. But what I did to Thelma was wrong. I treated her really badly, and the kids. I am no good at handling lots of love.” Biography: The Nine Lives of Ozzy Osbourne, airs tonight on the A&E channel in the US.