The IHT talks to several of the dealers who are bringing Picasso to Asia:
Edouard Malingue, a French art dealer, opened a gallery in Hong Kong in September with an exhibition that included 40 works by Picasso, 23 of which were illustrations that made up a sketchbook The works will be on view from Dec. 14 through 19 in Taipei in an exhibition hosted by the gallery. […]
Of his 40 Picassos — which ranged from $600,000 for works on paper to $10 million for a watercolor study used for the “Two Nudes” (1906) now at the Museum of Modern Art in New York — he had sold two by late November.
Mr. Malingue, whose father is the veteran French dealer Daniel Malingue, seemed more interested in introducing Picasso to Hong Kong than pushing for sales right away. […]
Shirley Yablonsky, director of the Opera Gallery in Hong Kong, said that the market was very different when the gallery opened here six years ago.
“When we came here, the market was still very young and there wasn’t much awareness of the true value of masterpieces — not just as the blue chips, but as rare jewels left behind by talents long gone from this world,” she said.
“This was our initial challenge, to make museum quality art accessible, so Asian buyers didn’t have to fly to Paris to source works from a dealer they might not really know,” she said. “In 2004, it was a virgin market.”
Picasso Is Springing Up in Asia (International Herald Tribune)
