One auction house is helping to teach Chinese investors

Poly International Auction Co Ltd, a leading auction house of Chinese artworks, said it will bring more Western works to Chinese collectors, who are attending more international auctions in search of investment opportunities.

"We do have long-term plans for developing Western art markets. That is to say (we want) to put Western artworks in auctions for Chinese collectors, but currently the market in China is just not mature," said Li Da, managing director of Poly Auction, which is based in Beijing.

She said Poly will continue to hold Western artworks exhibitions to engage Chinese collectors. With years of education, the domestic market for Western art may be ready in about 20 years.

Art, as a new avenue for investments that is seemly less risky and has faster appreciation, has attracted more and more pocketbooks in the past years when traditional investments, such as real estate and financial products, are stuck with an uncertain future.

The Netherlands-based art and antiques organizer TEFAF Maastricht, released a report on March 16 saying China overtook the United States to become the world's largest art and antique market with 30 percent of the global sales.

During TEFAF's 2012 fair from March 15-24, more than 100 Chinese collectors participated the fair. According to Guan Yu, deputy general manager of Artron.net, an art investment website in China, Chinese consumers spent more than 60 million yuan ($9.5 million) in the first two days after its arrival at the fair.

Auction revenue in China in 2011, $4.8 billion, again topped the global art market, taking up more than 41 percent of the global revenue and equaling the sum of those in the US and in the UK, according to the annual report published last month by the website Artprice, which provides art market information.

The number witnessed a rapid growth of 49 percent in auction revenue from artwork in China from the previous year.

Artwork auction revenue in Beijing alone took up 27 percent of last year's global total and Beijing Poly Auction was the biggest contributor with trade volume of 12.1 billion yuan.

Poly started searching for artwork on March 19 along the North American East Coast, in cities such as New York, Washington and Boston. Li said it will focus on collecting artworks, mostly Chinese pieces that are lost overseas, from American collectors.

Nearly 25 percent of the items sold during Poly's 2011 autumn auction were from North America and almost half of the lots in the company's 17th boutique auction in January were collected from this region.

The Chinese leading artwork auctioneer also opened a new office last month in the United States as investors rush into the art market.

The office is located in the heart of one of the world's art capitals - New York City - and in the same neighborhood as Times Square.

Though it has been doing business in the US for years, the Manhattan office was Poly's first permanent address in the country.

"Poly always wanted to establish a real international platform for collectors from all over the world to exchange and communicate more conveniently. And New York, as a metropolitan city that attracts art lovers worldwide, is a perfect choice," Li said.

The company, however, doesn't plan to conduct any auctions in the US in the near future.

"I hope it can serve as a window to help connect art lovers and collectors from both sides of the planet," Li said.

Poly Auction, with China Poly Group Corp as its parent company, specializes in Chinese art and antiques. It held its first auction in 2005, and clapped the highest price in China, 436.8 million yuan, for ancient Chinese art and calligraphy during the 2010 autumn auction season.

Suggesting more and more investors have set their eyes on the art market, Li said that they should be very cautious because though art can be valuable, it also can be elusive.