The first gallery street in Beijing opened for business last month in Culture Road of Guanyintang. There are nearly 50 galleries on the 1-km-long street, all of them looking like art museums, exhibiting many oil painting masterpieces of famous modern artists.

The price of the galleries varies from RMB tens of thousands to even millions. Nearly none of them are cheap enough for ordinary people, though many people come here to hunt for something of a reasonable price to decorate their homes. Mr. Li came here on a weekend to buy a landscape painting, only to find none cheaper than 5,000 yuan. As a matter of fact, there is something cheaper in the corners of some galleries waiting to be found by someone with enough patience.

The owner of a gallery told our reporter that this street was designed to meet the needs of professional collectors, and this is the key difference between the galleries on this street and other galleries in Beijing. That's why there are only the works of famous artists here. Though there are some cheap paintings in most of galleries here, they are kept in the storehouses to make space for those masterpieces.

Though visitors to this street are not rare, not many of them are really interested in buying the paintings. The owner of another gallery told our reporter that just paintings sold during trial business operation alonge were enough for them to pay the rent and to keep the business running. "Dealing in oil painting is different from other trades. Though the chances for clinching a deal are rare, every single chance gotten means the return of a large sum of money, " said he.
 
(Chinanews.cn July 14, 2006)