Memories of groundbreaking artist

Toward the end of the Spring Festival celebrations, China was in the spotlight-in the London art world. On New Bond Street at art sale, three bidders vied for a red canvas Mao by Andy Warhol, from 1973, which eventually made $12.7 million-nearly 20 times what it last went for at auction in 2000.

Also featured at this sale-which took in $174 million in total-were three works by the late Chinese-French artist Zao Wou-ki, who died last April. One of the works was the oil painting 15.11.88, which sold for more than $1.2 million-more than double its estimated price (the two others, both watercolors, also earned well over its pre-sale estimates). This follows on from Zao's 1958 Abstraction-which went under the hammer at Sotheby's Beijing last December, for a record-breaking $14.8 million. The buyer was a Chinese collector from Shanxi province.

Zao's works have long interested collectors, especially in Asia, and his artworks have made $140 million to date, according to Artprice.com. But prices are now soaring even higher, breaking records from East to West. Compare this to 20 years ago when, Sotheby's says, Zao was regularly featured in its London and Paris salerooms, and for unremarkable levels-around $10,000, and in some cases even less.

The skyrocketing prices, says Alex Branczik, Sotheby's head of contemporary art, London, are mainly fueled by Chinese buyers. On the mainland, he says: "There are so many high net worth and ultra-high net worth individuals popping up each year that it's an incredibly fast-moving marketplace."