Lai Shaoqi

Lai Shaoqi (赖少其) was born on 16 May 1915 in Puning, Guangdong Province, China. He worked across woodcarving, calligraphy, and painting, and became known in particular for his woodblock prints and for founding the New Huangshan School of Painting, a movement centered on Mount Huangshan imagery and associated with his later career in Anhui Province.

His work reached audiences outside China during his lifetime: from December 1991 to January 1992, the American Chinese Art Research Association organized a solo exhibition of his paintings at the L.J. Wender Gallery in New York. He died in 2000; Artnet gives an exact date of 28 November 2000 in Anhui, China, though other biographical sources confirm only the year. Today, a large body of his work is held at the Lai Shaoqi Museum of Art in Hefei, China.

Lai Shaoqi's institutional reputation rests chiefly on his role as founder of the New Huangshan School of Painting and on his standing as a multi-disciplinary artist working across woodblock printmaking, calligraphy, and painting. His centennial in 2015 was marked by a dedicated printmaking exhibition at the Guangzhou Museum of Art and by "Back to Nature," a research exhibition of his art at the Anhui Museum running into 2016, both framed as reassessments of his legacy. He was also included in "Floating Avant-Garde" at the Guangdong Art Museum in 2007 and 2008. No verbatim assessment from a named critic in a major outlet could be located and confirmed for this profile, so none is quoted here.

Lai Shaoqi's auction market is high in volume and low in English language documentation. Artprice records more than 2,500 lots sold at public auction under his name, the great majority through Chinese auction houses, with additional sales through international houses including Christie's and Bonhams. MutualArt's biographical page cites unlabeled "record price" designations, for 2025 tied to a work titled RESORT and for 2026 tied to a work titled Scenery of Mount Huang, but does not publish the prices, currencies, or sale venues behind those designations. As of this profile's data date, no single all-time auction record for the artist, with a confirmed work, price, house, and date, could be verified from public sources.

There is no catalogue raisonne for Lai Shaoqi, and no gallery or estate could be confirmed as his current representative, his work instead circulates through Chinese domestic auction houses and, less frequently, through international houses such as Christie's and Bonhams. Because so much of the market activity and pricing detail sits inside auction archives that are not fully public, collectors should expect thinner independent verification than is typical for artists with an active gallery or estate, and should weigh provenance and prior sale history carefully before relying on any single reported price.