Acquavella Galleries Inc. is set add Zeng Fanzhi to its illustrious list of artists, reports Katya Kazakina for Bloomberg. The New York-based, family-run gallery was established in 1925 and holds an impressive range of work, some of which dates back to the Renaissance. The gallery hosts many prominent names, from Monet, Degas and Cézanne to Léger, Picasso, Matisse, Rauschenberg, Giacometti and Miró.
Should the agreement with Zeng Fanzhi be reached, which according to owner William Acquavella now seems a formality, he would join the esteemed company of the likes of Richter and Warhol in Acquavella’s contemporary section.
Zeng Fanzhi has become famed for his uniquely styled portraits and perhaps this move was just as matter of time, as his paintings have seen astronomical rises at auction in recent years. In 2004 Zeng’s work reached $12,000 at Christie’s Hong Kong, but fast-forward just three years to 2007 and his hospital scene triptych of 1992 sold in London at Phillips de Pury & Co for $5.6 million.
Acquavilla will join a growing group of New York galleries to be feeding off the relentless success of Chinese art. Pace Wildenstein already represents painter Zhang Xiaogang and conceptual artist Zhang Huan. Mary Boone currently has a show of Ai Weiwei’s light pieces. While Marian Goodman Gallery and Robert Miller Gallery represent Yang Fudong and Yan Lei respectively. Furthermore the mid-career retrospective of Cai Guo Qiang at the Guggenheim in New York cannot go unnoticed.