Appreciation and market collecting of ethnic- minority- Themed oil paintings

Abstract

This paper traces the creative trajectory and market evolution of ethnic-minority-themed oil paintings in China since 1949—from the revolutionary hymns of the red era, through the 1980s "native-soil" boom, to the regional surge of the 1990s—highlighting canonical cases by Jin Shangyi, Chen Danqing, Ai Xuan, and Tuo Musi. Auction data show consistently strong prices for classical realist and "Tibet–steppe" segments, with landmark works fetching hundreds of millions or tens of millions of RMB. The study proposes a rational collecting framework of "five driving factors + consumer mindset + 15-year circulation rule," arguing that academic quality, ethnic-aesthetic resonance, and regional authenticity are the keys to value retention and appreciation, and predicts the genre will continue to gain momentum as the market matures.