Meet The Specialist
Bruce MacLaren
Global Head of Chinese Painting and Calligraphy
What is your current position at Bonhams?
I am the Global Head of Chinese Painting and Calligraphy, based in New York.
YUN SHOUPING (1633-1690), Landscapes and Flowers, 1665-1686. Sold for US$121,150 inc. premium.
LOT 321. YUN SHOUPING (1633-1690), Landscapes and Flowers, 1665-1686. Estimate: US $300,000 - $500,000
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Where are you from? And what inspired you to go into the auction world?
I grew up in Marblehead, Massachusetts, and my first experience in the auction world was an internship in the Asian Art Department at Butterfield & Butterfield in San Francisco.
What was your first job?
In high school I worked in sail lofts, sewing the hand worked details on boat sails.
Name one of your triumphs.
It was a great honor for me to sell the Reverend Richard Fabian collection of Chinese Painting and Calligraphy over the course of five single owner auctions from 2019-2022. Most of the paintings I had known for twenty years, and I wrote essays for the Fabian collection catalog when it was exhibited in Honolulu in 2007. The auctions were a great success, with a cumulative sell through rate of 93% for nearly three hundred 19th and 20th century works.
QI BAISHI (1864-1957), Autumnal Landscape for Lao She. Sold for US$121,150 inc. premium.
LOT 311. QI BAISHI (1864-1957), Autumnal Landscape for Lao She. Estimate: US $120,000 - US$180,000
What has changed in your area of the business since you first started?
Revealing my age, but the internet has profoundly transformed the art world!
What is your strength as a specialist?
I have spent equally long stretches of my career in both the market and museum sectors of the Chinese art world. Combined, these experiences have provided me a broad perspective on Chinese art. I am fortunate to have been blessed with the opportunity to closely interact with exemplary art works worldwide.
LIU KUO-SONG (LIU GUOSONG, BORN 1932)Landscape, 1967. Sold for US$51,200 inc. premium.
LOT 385. QIN FENG (BORN 1961), West Wind East Water 0618, 2006. Estimate: US$10,000 - $15,000
Do you have a hidden talent?
After university and before graduate school, my first career was as an artisan bread baker. I still bake bread every few days.
Which work of art has changed your life?
Ni Zan’s (1301-1374) Six Gentlemen, an ink landscape painting of six trees on a riverbank, made an indelible impression on my teenage self.
Although I was looking at a lousy reproduction in a book, I was awestruck by the strength and simplicity of the painter’s aesthetic.
Bruce MacLaren the Global Head of Chinese Painting and Calligraphy, based in New York. He can be reached at bruce.maclaren@bonhams.com.
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