Soul Painter

If you want to count the highest auction prices in the history of oil painting auctions in the world, then Leonardo da Vinci will definitely be able to win the top spot. In 2019, one of his works "Salvator Mundi" was sold at Christie's for a whopping $450 million.

If you count the top oil paintings auctioned in the world over the years, you will see Van Gogh, Monet, Edvard Munch, Klimt, Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, Francis Bacon, Picasso , Modigliani, Cézanne, Gauguin and other names, and different from people's impressions, in fact, the average value of artists in modern times, that is, in the 20th century, is higher.

But when the works of the above-mentioned artists were auctioned for sky-high prices, without exception, they had already passed away.

It may be a very interesting topic for the press, but it is not good news for collectors.

In 1987, when the Japanese waved a lot of money and bought Van Gogh's "Sunflowers" at a high price of about 40 million US dollars, the value of more than a dozen painters who were contemporary with Van Gogh rose sharply, such as Renoir, Cézanne, Degas, Picasso, Kandinsky, Léger, etc., for example, Renoir's "Ball at the Moulin de la Pancake" sold for a record-breaking price of US$78.1 million three years later.

Therefore, one can imagine the dissatisfied faces of buyers in the art market when they heard that Gao Fan’s two consecutive works fetched nearly 100 million U.S. dollars. This means that the global art market, especially oil paintings The market, and more specifically, the paintings of the Devil School will become more expensive.

Even Ana Armas, who has never had a work on the market, quickly gained a value of more than 30 million US dollars per work.

Who is secretly promoting Gao Fan's worth?

This is irrational.

Also crazy.

What will be damaged will be the buyer's market of global art.

But the dissatisfaction of the buyer group could not stop the irrationality and madness in their eyes.

April 16.

"Love and Desire", one of the mask group paintings, broke the auction price of 100 million for the first time, and the transaction price was 107 million US dollars.

As for the total income of the "Mask" group paintings in Christie's spring auction, it has reached 279 million.

This can't help but make Christie's four-city fantasy joint auction show, the income of the Xiangjiang area beats the other three cities.

Once the news was released, it also detonated the entire public opinion.

The 24-year-old Gao Fan, the founder of Devil School, broke into the top ten of the Forbes artist list with a sudden gesture.

Countless news media once again focused their attention on Gao Fan.

News such as "a single work of a 24-year-old young artist is close to 100 million US dollars" is no surprise. Only the news "Gao Fan, a young painter with a net worth of over 100 million, decided to donate 50% of his income to charity", Only then will it trigger a wider public debate.

"You sent it?" Gao Fan asked Lawrence after seeing the news.

"Of course not." Lawrence said, "But the charitable fund jointly established by us and Tianmei can be found out by anyone who wants to track it down. Maybe someone wanted to check your tax issues, and found this, and it was published as news. "

Um. Gao Fan nodded, that's probably the truth.

"Don't worry about anything, you are different now." Lawrence said again, "It was different in Boston."

Not the same, it means that Gao Fan has already stood on two levels with other contemporary oil painting artists. What Gao Fan does and does not do will no longer be used to compare other painters. He can only continue to surpass himself and complete A grander legend.

"It's already 279 million." Lawrence said again, "Tomorrow's "Despair", if it gets 121 million, you must fulfill your promise."

"I'm willing to bet and admit defeat." Gao Fan said, "But do you know who the buyers are?"

"Two are anonymous, and the other is M. Luc Villier," said Lawrence.

This name awakened some memories of Gao Fan.

It seems that Siegfried said it.

"Oh, it's the spokesperson of the Nine Angels." Gao Fan whispered, and he remembered.

"What did you say?" Lawrence didn't hear clearly.

"It's nothing. In this way, if someone can successfully shoot "Redemption", please send an invitation for me. I want to meet him." Gao Fan said, "It must be very interesting."

"What are you going to talk to him about?" Lawrence asked curiously.

"Let's talk about... world peace." Gao Fan said.

...

April 17.

"Despair", one of the mask group paintings originally scheduled to appear as the finale on the 18th, will be auctioned on the 17th.

Because it involved the bet between Gao Fan and Christie's, Shi Junan set aside the 18th as a window of time for the real implementation of the bet.

According to previous experience, "Despair" as a self-portrait in the mask group has special significance, so it must be worth more, and the auction price of "Love" has exceeded 100 million, so the transaction price of "Despair" will definitely be 100 million On top of that, once it exceeds 121 million, the auction of the last piece of "Redemption" in the mask group will start again, so this one is highly anticipated.

The auction was still presided over by Chen Liangling. Within three minutes after she announced that the starting price of the mask group painting "Despair" was 26 million US dollars, the auction price was directly raised to 50 million US dollars by a mysterious guest, followed by telephone quotations one after another. , the guests from the other three cities on the big screen seemed to be bored with the tedious auction process, and a series of astronomical numbers flashed alternately—most people have only seen such a long string of characters on the hard disk memory capacity.

Ten minutes later, the auction price for "Despair" was set at $121 million.

The bidder came from an anonymous buyer in London.

Mr. Luc Villiers from Xiangjiang District did not raise his placard during the whole process, but he kept paying attention to the quotation. After waiting for Chen Liangling to quote a price of US$121 million, he seemed to smile.

Finally, Chen Liangling knocked down the auction hammer.

"Despair" sold for $121 million.

This price is very interesting, just enough for Gao Fan's four works to gather a transaction price of 400 million US dollars.

Although the auction lasted only ten minutes, Chen Liangling's breathing was already short of breath. Millions and tens of millions of bids were raised one bite at a time. Although the number of bids was small, the weight of each bite was so amazing that Chen Liangling even felt a little thrilling. When she finally dropped the hammer, there was a sense of relief and excitement.

Chen Liangling was very aware of the bet, and even said that it was she who proposed it to Shi Junan, and the final transaction price of "Despair" also implied that the reason why the first four mask paintings were able to be auctioned at an unusually high price was because The eyes of some mysterious buyers are all focused on this last mask group painting.

So far, it's just an appetizer.

Snapped!

A hammer fell.

A strand of hair hangs down from Chen Liangling's temples, and there is sweat on her forehead, which spoils her perfect makeup, but it is also in line with the quiet environment of the auction site, but there are shocking waves hidden in it. She believes that tomorrow's final auction will be A pinnacle of her career.

Chapter Two~