Title: Liu Zilan Post by: George on December 22, 2016, 03:32:24 am Asking for the owner.. Not mine..
Is anyone familiar with this Modern artist 刘子兰 Liu Zilan ? I can not find it on Peter's DB, books, or Bill's site. Title: Re: Liu Zilan Post by: Wattana on December 22, 2016, 03:37:06 am I read somewhere that there are an estimated 40,000 practising IP artists in China. This may be one of the ones NOT listed in Peter's database!
Title: Re: Liu Zilan Post by: Joey Silver / Si Zhouyi 義周司 on December 22, 2016, 04:18:01 am Dear Tom,
I can tell you where you read it - in the Preface of CIPMA (Chinese Inside Painting of the Modern Age) published in early 2006! That statement ("Now there are more than 40,000 persons engaging in inside painting art... annual output value ... near RMB 1 Billion."), almost caused me to have a nervous breakdown! I had agreed to give a seminar on the modern [Wang Xisan and after] IPSB artists at the 2006 ICSBS SFO convention. I knew of about 15 or so, and in my collection had examples by 12 of the artists (Wang Xisan, Liu Shouben, Li Kechang, Liu Yizi, Suo Zhenhai, Suo Jing, Su Fengyi, Chen Runpu, He Shuiqing, Liu Kunyan, Wang Guanyu, and Zhuang Shuhong). My plan had been to choose a bottle or two from each of the artists whose works were in my collection, show them in my slide presentation, and to say there were a few more artists I'd not bought from. Then, in March of 2006, I received my copy of CIPMA. How was I to talk about FORTY THOUSAND 'new' artists?! How was I even to talk about the 116 artists actually featured in the book?! After 'hibernating' a few days, in a state of shock, I called my big brother, and asked him what to do. His sage advice? To still talk about the 10-12 I had intended to present, but to get a few copies of the book, and to talk as well about it, and its ramifications on collecting modern IPSBs - Does one focus on artists? On subjects (like fish, or landscapes, or birds)? And then to conclude by saying that there was a lot of opportunity for personal development, and enjoyment. Best, Joey Title: Re: Liu Zilan Post by: Wattana on December 22, 2016, 04:55:55 am Dear Joey,
I do not have a copy of that publication, so must have read it in a review of the book - possibly in the JICSBS....? Anyhow, thank you for identifying the source. BTW, your big brother's advice was indeed sage! Best, Tom Title: Re: Liu Zilan Post by: Joey Silver / Si Zhouyi 義周司 on December 22, 2016, 05:10:25 am Dear Tom,
I am sure I quoted it in a post or two, as well. But you may well have read it in the review of the book in the ICSBS Journal. Best, Joey Title: Re: Liu Zilan Post by: AntPeople on December 22, 2016, 07:11:21 am Hi George
The name is 刘子艺.... Liu ZhiYi Pin Title: Re: Liu Zilan Post by: George on December 22, 2016, 09:41:23 am Hi George The name is 刘子艺.... Liu ZhiYi Pin Thank you Pin :) Title: Re: Liu Zilan Post by: AntPeople on December 22, 2016, 10:52:54 pm But truly speacking.... I think is not correct.... only the bottle blank is correct... the painting is a big question mark.....
Pin Title: Re: Liu Zilan Post by: George on December 22, 2016, 11:12:53 pm But truly speacking.... I think is not correct.... only the bottle blank is correct... the painting is a big question mark..... Pin When I look at other bottles painted by him, this one does not seem a theme he would paint, as well the painting style is quite different.. http://snuffbottlecollector.com/liu_ziyi/liu_ziyi_1.htm Thank you again Pin.. Title: Re: Liu Zilan Post by: Joey Silver / Si Zhouyi 義周司 on December 23, 2016, 08:59:42 am Guys, Are you talking about Liu Zhiyi or Liu Ziyi?
The first I don't know about. The second was considered one of the 'eccentric' artists of the modern period, was considered a Master, and was Liu Yizi's late father (died early Nov.2001). Best, Joey Title: Re: Liu Zilan Post by: AntPeople on December 23, 2016, 10:26:51 am Liu ZiYi .... sorry, my HanYuPinYing is not that good
Pin Title: Re: Liu Zilan Post by: Joey Silver / Si Zhouyi 義周司 on December 23, 2016, 05:34:47 pm Dear Pin,
Not a big problem. Just a bit confusing. Best, Joey Liu ZiYi .... sorry, my HanYuPinYing is not that good Pin Title: Re: Liu Zilan = Liu Ziyi 刘 子 艺 Post by: Peter Bentley 彭达理 on December 23, 2016, 07:59:41 pm Hello All
This thread caught my eye.... Joey wrote : “I can tell you where you read it - in the Preface of CIPMA (Chinese Inside Painting of the Modern Age) published in early 2006! That statement ("Now there are more than 40,000 persons engaging in inside painting art... annual output value ... near RMB 1 Billion."), almost caused me to have a nervous breakdown!” ____________________________________________ At first when I read that quote by Joey from CIPMA I thought he must be mistaken, but then I checked CIPMA and Joey is correct. That's exactly what it says in the preface to CIPMA However, although it's hardly my place to disagree with whoever wrote that originally (it's signed by the Editorial Board of CIPMA) I find it completely at variance with fact unless the numbers include factory workers and the general tourist / Christmas trinket / junk IPB business . If you read the first part of my ICSBS article, which you can access in the sidebar, you will see that when I analyzed my DB I found about 950 artists, of which about 670 were real names and about 280 were alternate art names (thus total about 670 real artists, some of whom also use alternate art names when they signed bottles). Although my DB is far from exhaustive (particularly regarding very minor artists from the period 1985 - 2000 when I was not collecting) it's now very rare that I come across a name that I cannot eventually find in my DB when the exact Pin Yin is clarified And when I do occasionally come across a new artist it's almost invariably a very minor one - more like a student who painted a few bottles and then quickly dropped out (If you check Bill's website you will find a lot of junior artists there who painted while Bill was doing the bulk of his collecting in the early 2000s, but who have now completely vanished) Case in point : Liu Zilan as per George = Liu Zhiyi as per Pin (1st correction) = Liu Ziyi * (Joey/ Pin 2nd correction) (* Pin : It seems to me that the Liu is in traditional character form but the Yi is a simplified character - am I correct ? ) And we all should know Liu Ziyi (= Liu Zhijiang = Zhi Jiang) because he's listed big time in New Look and is the father of Liu Yizi ! So I reckon that at maximum there were / are at very most only 2,000 (maybe only 1,500 ?) real MIPB artists who ever painted including all the students who dropped out after painting a few bottles which they bothered to sign (or have had signed by their Master , e.g. Da Yong signed hundreds - if not thousands - of his students bottles either with his name or with another art name (e.g. the great Liu Jianghua scam - over 2,500 bottles signed "Liu Jianghua" which were in fact painted by senior students in Hengshui. N.B.: that scam is taboo in Hengshui ...... Don't even ask ! But I personally have the smoking gun in my collection) More to the point, at any one time there were/are only 200 - 300 artists of any significance actively painting of which less than 100 were/are serious "big names" whose work was/is worth collecting . Whenever I have been to big exhibitions of VMIPBs in China I have seen only 50 - 70 artists exhibiting, and usually the same "core" group of top 30 + artists. So I am convinced that the "40,000" artists and the "RMB 1 billion" annual output includes the tourist and trinket trade factory workers (although I have yet to see any such factory ! ) Actually a simple back-of-the envelope calculation confirms this. Assuming about 40,000 factory workers who each paint two bottles per day and dividing that into RMB 1 billion gives an average price of RMB30 (= about US$5) per bottle. I reckon that RMB30 / US$5 is the sale price by the time the bottle hits retailers so assuming a 3:1 mark-up between the factory and the retail price, the ex-factory price is about RMB 10 per bottle. 2 x bottles per day per worker = 60 bottles per month = RMB 600 per month per worker (not including factory overheads ) ..... I think you can see how the numbers work out roughly. At the time CIPMA was published in 2006 the 116 artists listed were probably on average selling their bottles to collectors at about RMB1,000 - 2,000 each and were painting at the rate of about 10 - 20 bottles per year. Assuming upper figures : 20 bottles x RMB2,000 p.a. = RMB40,000 p.a. = about RMB4,000 p.m. which is roughly what I estimated the average middle-ranking artist was earning in the mid-late 2000s. (The very few top masters were of course earning much more, but not significantly more) Assume 100 - 150 x active artists @ RMB40,000 p.a. annual output per artist in 2006 : that = approx. RMB5 million p.a. which is only 0.5% of the "RMB 1 billion" total industry. Again - these are just back-of-the-envelope calculations but you can see how the numbers make general sense. Another cross-confirmation is the fact that when I was seriously collecting in the period 2006 - 2010 and was still buying many of my bottles from specialist shops (as opposed to buying direct from artists) I found only a couple of specialist shops : one in Beijing and one in Shanghai. On the other hand there were at least a dozen other IPB shops selling junk tourist trade bottles in each of those cities, not to mention all the hotel gift shops. (And that's only BJ and SH ! What about Nanjing, Guangzhou and other major tourist cities ?) Then again, at those two specialist shops, they each had about 500 + bottles for sale, but only about maximum 20 bottles at any one time by real artists (i.e. the kind of artists whose names appeared in CIPMA). 20 "real" bottles for sale among 10 shops each stocking 500 bottles = 0.4% : same ball-park. Does anyone else have some anecdotal information to corroborate (or otherwise) my rough calculations? Cheers Peter Title: Re: Liu Zilan Post by: Joey Silver / Si Zhouyi 義周司 on December 24, 2016, 02:25:43 am Dear Peter,
Everything you wrote is very correct and logical. And I've no argument with it. But both Tom and I were simply quoting the CIPMA Preface. Best, Joey |