New discoveries

Gmurzynska officially took over Lam's estate seven years ago, at a time when his name was popular primarily with Latin-American collectors. According to Rastorfer, Lam was especially popular in Paris in the '70s and in Miami in the '80s. He says that today, there is enormous interest from Chinese museums to host shows and there will be other travelling exhibitions with major museums soon.

"Lam's retrospectives over the last three years at the Tate and the Pompidou Centre have brought his name outside Miami," says Rastorfer."From a market point of view, he moved from the Latin-American sales into the Modernist and Evening ones. The most interesting thing about Lam in Asia, for Gmurzynska, is that there is no other classic modern painter in the first half of the 20th century who qualifies as Chinese."