China auctioneer launches new art program

Heather Elgood says those who attend her class at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, include students in their 20s and even 70s.

The older students, she says, are usually bankers and lawyers, who have collected Chinese ceramics for years and want to learn more about them.

Elgood is the course director for postgraduate diploma studies in Asian art at SOAS.

She says her teaching emphasizes two things: the direct touch her students from different parts of the world have with objects of art and the history of such works.

In light of a new cooperation established between her university and the Guardian Education Center in Beijing, Elgood says she hopes her experience and expertise will also benefit Chinese collectors and art lovers.

A subsidiary of the Beijing-based Guardian Group, the education center, along with SOAS and the Art Institute of Chicago, a large US museum, launched the international program in November. The program will offer both short- and long-term courses on art, art history and the market to artists, patrons and buyers, as well for others interested in art.

A small class is expected to have about 20 students.

The Guardian Group also owns China Guardian Auctions, one of the country’s top auctioneers, and Guardian Art Center in Beijing, which regularly hosts exhibitions.

The first course will open in May on the overseas collections of ancient Chinese ceramics and bronze wares. Lecturers, including experts from Europe and the United States, will share their latest studies on major British collections of Chinese porcelain and US assemblages of Chinese bronze wares dating to the Shang (c. 16th century-11th century BC) and Zhou (c. 11th century-256 BC) dynasties.

Wang Tao, curator of Chinese art at the Art Institute of Chicago, says he hopes potential students for the new program can first visit his museum to view the exhibition, Mirroring China’s Past: Emperors and Their Bronzes.

The display of archaic Chinese bronze will open on Feb 25 and provide glimpses of Bronze Age history.

Wang is also the museum’s executive director of a program called Initiatives in Asia. He says Chinese visitors were a rapidly growing international audience group at the museum last year.

He says the exhibition and the course together will shed new light on the research on the aesthetic value of Chinese bronze housed abroad and how the items have been passed down generations.

Kou Qin, board chairman of the Guardian Education Center, says that besides the international program they will also offer courses on other art genres, such as classical Chinese painting, in cooperation with local cultural institutes.

The center will also hold another course, on weekends from April to June 2018, introducing ink-brush masters of 20th-century Chinese art.

The rapid growth of the Chinese art market has boosted people’s interest in art and collecting.

There are speculators who seek short-term revenues but more buyers want to be serious collectors through systematic learning.

Elgood says collectors should learn so they don’t waste money and don’t need to rely on dealers to buy for them.

She hopes more Chinese appreciate the country’s heritage and respect for the technical quality of its objects.

This will make a large contribution in terms of self-respect and identity of Chinese culture, she says.