Here’s an interesting turn of events in the global art market. Colin Gleadell reports that Frank Cohen, the retail mogul and industrial-scale art buyer, is divesting himself of a number of works by Chinese, Korean, Indian, Iranian, European and American artists who were once all the rage in London and New York.

The sale takes place in September but Cohen’s selling the horde, which Gleadell estimates in the region of £5m, in Australia at Mossgreen’s. The auction house says one in five of their Asian customers is a Chinese who owns property in Australia:

One of the highlights from Cohen’s Chinese shows is Zeng Fanzhi’s Sky no 7, from a series of expressionist figure paintings that have fetched over £1m, which is estimated at £560,000. Another is Fang Lijun’s large triptych of ghostly faces in cloudy skies at £400,000. The artists’ record is £4.8m.

In the Indian section, Thukral and Tagra’s Disneyesque painting, “Coming Soon to Your Neighbourhood” is nearly eight metres wide (£40,000); Sudasharn Shetty’s skeletal “Double Cow” sculpture (£32,000) takes up three metres each way, and Jitish Kallat’s equally skeletal car, “Collidonthus”, (£80,000) will need a decent size garage to stay in.

Of the European and American works to stand out is an almost three metre square patchwork of money bags by Danish artist Sergej Jensen. A slightly larger version of this sold in New York four years ago for £170,000, while Cohen’s is priced at just £80,000.

Frank Cohen’s contemporary collection gets set for sale Down Under  (Telegraph)