A CALLIGRAPHIC album of 37 poems by Mao Zedong fetched 14.26 million yuan (US$2.34 million) at an auction in Beijing on Nov. 16.

    The calligraphic works were painted in running script (xingshu) by Guo Moruo (1892-1978), a government official and leading author and scholar of 20th-century China.

    Guo finished the album in 1967, a year after the start of the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976). He gave them to his sister-in-law Yu Lixiu as a gift.

    Yu kept the album as a family treasure for decades, including difficult years when she labored at a cadre school in Anhui Province.

    “I believe collecting art is about history, emotion and responsibility. The works have a soul and provide a living historical context. I hope they can find a ‘bosom buddy’ who will preserve them well and promote their glories,” Yu said.

    The album attracted a packed room of bidders and observers at the China Guardian Auctions’ autumn sale.

    “The lot is a treasure because you rarely find such a complete album with a large sheet size among Guo’s works of calligraphy. At the age of 75, he endowed every character under his brush with vigor and richness,” said Dai Wei, manager of Guardian Auctions’ Chinese painting and calligraphy department.

    Before Saturday night’s sale, “Irrigation Ditch of Happiness,” a modern Chinese painting portraying Mao attending the opening of an irrigation ditch at a revolutionary base, was sold privately for 40.6 million yuan.

    The work was painted by a production team led by noted painter Liu Wenxi. It created quite a stir when it appeared at the national fine arts exhibition in 1974 and was widely published as posters and on covers of magazines. It was later identified as a textbook work of the revolutionary-era “Red Classics” art genre.

    Works from the “Red Classics” genre have had a stable market performance in recent years. Signature works frequently appear at auctions, setting record-breaking prices.

    For example, Li Keran’s ink drawings of Mao Zedong’s residence in Shaoshan sold for 124 million yuan last year, and Xu Beihong’s “Happily Farming in a Peaceful World” sold for 267 million yuan in 2011.

    The “Red Classics” genre forms a significant part of New China’s art history, said Dai. “The category has recorded steady growth along with the development of China’s auction industry, surviving the ups and downs of the market. Artists of that period invested unrivaled enthusiasm in creating works that are beyond the imagination of people today. And many of them developed unique styles that still influence the current art scene and deserve our full respect,” he said.

    Another historical image sold at the auction on Saturday was a black-and-white photo taken by Jiang Qing, wife of Mao Zedong, in 1961 along with a poem Mao wrote for the photo. Together, the items fetched 340,000 yuan at Huachen Auctions’ autumn sale in Beijing.

    (SD-Agencies)