Galleries of Hope for Artists

The exhibition center of Wan Fung Art Gallery is at the Forbidden City Archives (Huang Shi Cheng), a major section which records the Ming and Qing dynasties. It was in the main hall of the archives that the emperors of both dynasties stored their confidential documents.

The gallery covers the East and West Halls, both of 200sq.m. The western area is the Wan Fung Beijing Exhibition Center, which features Chinese masterpieces; the eastern the Wan Fung Arts Museum, where fine arts products such as oil paintings and sculpture are displayed. It is also used for exhibitions of works by domestic and foreign painters.

Wan Fung Art Gallery is dedicated to the promotion of Chinese culture, especially the works of famous contemporary Chinese artists who specialize in traditional Chinese painting, oils, watercolor, sculpture and mixed media. The gallery is also committed to supporting promising, talented young Chinese artists in their pursuit of international recognition.

Wan Fung favors artists of character who display delicate skills. At least 10 such painters, recommended and promoted by the gallery, have had their works sold through international auctioneers Sotheby's and Christie's, confirmation that the artists are gradually being accepted on the global market.

Currently, Wan Fung stores more than 12,000 paintings. Along with its Beijing gallery, it has three galleries in Hong Kong and one in Guangdong Province. All play an active role in promoting Chinese art world-wide.

Qin Gallery

Set up in 1996, Qin Gallery is oriented to both art and academic exchanges. It carries out international cultural exchanges by holding art exhibitions and selling to personal collectors and international art organizations. Successfully combining art and commerce, it also promotes new artists and their works, and serves the needs of the arts.

Qin Gallery has a good environment for exhibitions. It can hold long-term events of oil paintings, Chinese paintings, water colors, carvings and Chinese folk arts.

Young artists may strike lucky at Qin, which has held exhibitions for them for several years and constantly seeks out more young talents.

By using well-trained craftsmen and the most advanced equipment imported from Italy, Qin also offers comprehensive services including fine mounting and framing.

Creation Gallery

Located on Ritan Dongyijie in the embassy area of Beijing's Chaoyang District, Creation Gallery was established as an art salon in September 1997 by professional painter Li Xiaoke, son of master Chinese painter Li Keran. The gallery's main aim is to promote contemporary art inspired by what it calls the "profound earth of the orient"--basically Chinese culture. It also constantly searches for young and middle-aged contemporary artists, including the unknown, and those who produce ink and wash paintings and prints.

In mounting specialized exhibitions, Creation introduces outstanding artworks to the market. In doing so, on a trial basis, the gallery is characterized by its agency system whereby it acts for a select group of accomplished artists such as "born again" Lu Chen and Yang Gang. As an "open" gallery, it also occasionally enables artists, collectors and other art-lovers to communicate directly with each other, and organizes special events for academics and others.

As owner of China's largest collotype reproduction studio, Creation Gallery sells reproductions of the works of painter Li Keran and other masters in an attempt to narrow the gap between high-standard artworks and ordinary people. Frame-making is another of its services, along with the specialized mounting of calligraphic works.

Creation Gallery welcomes the support and evaluation of Chinese and foreign friends while pledging to do its best in providing customers with anything in the diversified world of art that interests and concerns them.

Red Gate Gallery

This gallery has been exhibiting the works of outstanding contemporary Chinese artists since 1991. Currently, 22 are represented, a diverse group whose paintings reflect their keen awareness of China's rapidly changing society. Their observations of the daily life of ordinary people, and exploration of such issues as gender, population (family planning), and the environment, have proved of wide appeal in the Chinese capital.

Through traditional Chinese painting, collage, lithographs and oils, Red Gate's artists are acknowledged as supplying a "social commentary" on the political, economic and cultural transformations in contemporary Chinese society. The artists promoted by Red Gate express their feelings through various materials, including oils/acrylics; installation and sculptures; performance art; prints; mixed media and photography.

Red Gate founder Brian Wallace first came to China in 1986 to study Chinese and art history. In 1988 he began organizing exhibitions for young Chinese artists, which led to the establishment of his gallery at Dongbianmen Watchtower. Since that time, he has regularly arranged six to eight solo shows per year, complemented by guest exhibitions.

Red Gate currently holds its shows on the Watchtower's first and fourth levels. Because they provide more space than for earlier exhibitions, Wallace hopes to continue showing the works of gallery-represented artists as well as those of invited guest curators in order to organize larger group exhibitions.