The Parrots Have Come Home

I like to keep newspaper cuttings. In a way, old newspaper cuttings help to record things or happenings in the past. If you look back (at those things or events that happened), you are glad that you have actually kept those newspaper cuttings all the while, or else, you won't remember what had happened.

Here is a story (from my newspaper cuttings) regarding some amazing parrots (around 50 of them, all from the Jurong Birdpark in Singapore) painted by a renowned Chinese artist by the name of Wu Guanchong. This huge ink-and-colour piece, Parrots, which Wu took half a year to conceptualise and one week to paint. The painting appeared a few days ago in the press before a Fine Arts Auction to be held in Singapore in 1994. The Parrots, which Wu painted after his first visit to Singapore in 1988, would be his largest ever put up for sale at an auction with a base price of $300,000 to $350,000 then in 1994.

Pre-auction Publicity in 1994 

The painting was eventually sold at a record price of $374,00 during the 1994 auction held in Singapore.

This article was dated August 2, 1994

This painting was again in the news, in an article "Parrots fly their way home" which appeared in the press on November, 2005. The article has a heading which read like this: A painting of parrots drawn in Singapore has been bought in Beijing  by a museum here. A large painting of Parrots by Chinese master Wu Guanchong has returned to Singapore, some 17 years after it was painted here.

Article was dated November 10, 2005

The Parrots was bought by Art Retreat, a private museum in Singapore for a record S$5.8 million at an auction in Beijing. The painting will be placed in the Wu Guanchong Gallery, which is part of Art Retreat in Ubi Techpark industrial centre.

Invitation card of initial auction on 24th July 1994

There is great value in Chinese Fine Arts by renowned artists. In the 1990s, $374,000 was unthinkable for a painting. One could purchase a nice home for something less than this amount. Well, in the world of fine arts, anything is possible. Then in 2005, you might also comment that a price of over 5 million dollars was just crazy for a painting. By today's standard, some of these fine arts can well fetch tens or even hundreds of millions in auctions. You see, there are plenty of rich persons around.

 

Watch this video you will know what I mean.