Modern China
including Chinese born artists
Except otherwise stated, all results include the premium.
See also : China Qi Baishi Zhang Daqian Zhang Daqian < 1965 Zao Wou-Ki Sanyu Li Keran Cui Ruzhuo Abstract art II Animals Bird Landscape Mountains in China
Chronology : 20th century 1920-1929 1925 1940-1949 1946 1948 1951 1955 1963 1964 1965 1980-1989 1985 2010-2019 2013
Except otherwise stated, all results include the premium.
See also : China Qi Baishi Zhang Daqian Zhang Daqian < 1965 Zao Wou-Ki Sanyu Li Keran Cui Ruzhuo Abstract art II Animals Bird Landscape Mountains in China
Chronology : 20th century 1920-1929 1925 1940-1949 1946 1948 1951 1955 1963 1964 1965 1980-1989 1985 2010-2019 2013
1925 Twelve Landscapes by Qi Baishi
2017 SOLD for RMB 930M by Poly
The traditional Chinese graphic art is an uninterrupted series of imitations of the old masters. Bada Shanren's eccentric approach at the very beginning of the Qing dynasty is a rare exception.
Born in Hunan province into a family of poor peasants, Qi Baishi was self-taught. Settled in Beijing at the age of 53 in 1917, he drew inspiration from Bada Shanren to develop a vigorous and spontaneous line, reaching poetry through a free realism. His greatest innovation is the use of inks in very bright colors.
His themes are varied while being ordinary and peaceful : landscapes, trees, countless small things. He paints according to his own observations, is not interested in symbols and allegories and does not follow Bada Shanren in the rebellion.
Qi Baishi executed in 1925 a monumental series of twelve vertical panels in light blue, gray, brown and pink on paper 180 x 47 cm each. The simple graphic style is inspired from Bada Shanren amended by the teaching of Wu Changshuo. The painting technique combines outline and splashing of ink, with bright colors in between. Calligraphed poems are included.
They manage to express the variety of mountains, villages and blossoming trees, as evidenced by the twelve individual titles (Google translation from Chinese) : "Houses on the River", "Double Shadows of Rocks", "Lonely Sail on Banqiao", "Cypress Trees", "Afterglow on the Far Shore", "Pine Trees and White Houses", "Apricots" "Flower and Grass Hall", "Fir Tree Tower", "Deep Smoke and Shadow of Sail", "Spring Rain in the Mountains", "Mangroves and White Spring", "Bantang Lotus Fragrance".
The full set had been presented by the artist to a doctor in Beijing who specialized in treating senior Kuomintang officials and also artists and literati. It was sold for RMB 930M from a lower estimate of RMB 500M by Poly on December 17, 2017, lot 2806. The image is shared by China Daily.
There is only one other similar set. Painted in 1932, it is kept in a museum in Chongqing.
Born in Hunan province into a family of poor peasants, Qi Baishi was self-taught. Settled in Beijing at the age of 53 in 1917, he drew inspiration from Bada Shanren to develop a vigorous and spontaneous line, reaching poetry through a free realism. His greatest innovation is the use of inks in very bright colors.
His themes are varied while being ordinary and peaceful : landscapes, trees, countless small things. He paints according to his own observations, is not interested in symbols and allegories and does not follow Bada Shanren in the rebellion.
Qi Baishi executed in 1925 a monumental series of twelve vertical panels in light blue, gray, brown and pink on paper 180 x 47 cm each. The simple graphic style is inspired from Bada Shanren amended by the teaching of Wu Changshuo. The painting technique combines outline and splashing of ink, with bright colors in between. Calligraphed poems are included.
They manage to express the variety of mountains, villages and blossoming trees, as evidenced by the twelve individual titles (Google translation from Chinese) : "Houses on the River", "Double Shadows of Rocks", "Lonely Sail on Banqiao", "Cypress Trees", "Afterglow on the Far Shore", "Pine Trees and White Houses", "Apricots" "Flower and Grass Hall", "Fir Tree Tower", "Deep Smoke and Shadow of Sail", "Spring Rain in the Mountains", "Mangroves and White Spring", "Bantang Lotus Fragrance".
The full set had been presented by the artist to a doctor in Beijing who specialized in treating senior Kuomintang officials and also artists and literati. It was sold for RMB 930M from a lower estimate of RMB 500M by Poly on December 17, 2017, lot 2806. The image is shared by China Daily.
There is only one other similar set. Painted in 1932, it is kept in a museum in Chongqing.
1946 Eagle by Qi Baishi
2011 SOLD for RMB 425M by China Guardian (unpaid)
A drawing by Qi Baishi had been auctioned for RMB 425M by China Guardian on May 22, 2011, lot 1192. It features an eagle standing in a pine tree.
The composition is bold : the bird is completely surrounded by branches, but its proud look makes it the focal point of this image of 266 x 100 cm, flanked by two stripes 66 cm wide. Each stripe includes a poem in four huge calligrams.
It is a political symbol. This eagle was made in 1946 to celebrate the birthday of Jiang Jieshi (pinyin for Chiang Kai-shek) after the defeat of Japan.
Two years after the sale by Chinese Antiques : the winning bidder has refused to pay for the piece since doubts were raised about its authenticity.
The composition is bold : the bird is completely surrounded by branches, but its proud look makes it the focal point of this image of 266 x 100 cm, flanked by two stripes 66 cm wide. Each stripe includes a poem in four huge calligrams.
It is a political symbol. This eagle was made in 1946 to celebrate the birthday of Jiang Jieshi (pinyin for Chiang Kai-shek) after the defeat of Japan.
Two years after the sale by Chinese Antiques : the winning bidder has refused to pay for the piece since doubts were raised about its authenticity.
1948 Landscape after Wang Ximeng by Zhang Daqian
2022 SOLD for HK$ 370M by Sotheby's
Zhang Daqian permeated his art with the best antique pictorial traditions, including the blue and green paintings from the Sui, Tang and Song. This practice was vilified by Western observers as plagiarism after the second world war. Yet it fits perfectly in the spirit of continuity that governs the Chinese art for three millennia.
A landscape of rivers and mountains after Wang Ximeng painted in January and February 1948 is a fair example of a transformation performed by Zhang while keeping the spirit and the style of an antique painting. It had not been shown in public since 1983.
Wang was a prodigy artist under the Northern Song dynasty who was taught and commissioned by the Huizong emperor himself. He died in 1119 CE at 23 years old. The unique artwork attributed to him is a handscroll 52 x 1200 cm painted in ink and blue and green colors on silk when he was not yet 18 years old. It is now kept in the Palace Museum in Beijing.
The work by Zhang was to transfer the significant elements of that masterpiece into a 134 x 73 cm hanging scroll of a similar technique. He did not keep the original composition, changing the multi point classical scenery into a modern perspective from a shore while preserving the vastness of the mountain range.
He led the perfection into even copying the seagulls and geese half hidden in the waves. Zhang's make is in fine line and exquisite color including gold flecks that shimmer in the sunlight. The distant mountains are colored in Mogu style.
Landscape after Wang Ximeng was sold for HK $ 370M by Sotheby's on April 30, 2022, lot 3073. Please watch the video shared by the auction house, providing a significant juxtaposition of elements of the antique and modern pictures.
A landscape of rivers and mountains after Wang Ximeng painted in January and February 1948 is a fair example of a transformation performed by Zhang while keeping the spirit and the style of an antique painting. It had not been shown in public since 1983.
Wang was a prodigy artist under the Northern Song dynasty who was taught and commissioned by the Huizong emperor himself. He died in 1119 CE at 23 years old. The unique artwork attributed to him is a handscroll 52 x 1200 cm painted in ink and blue and green colors on silk when he was not yet 18 years old. It is now kept in the Palace Museum in Beijing.
The work by Zhang was to transfer the significant elements of that masterpiece into a 134 x 73 cm hanging scroll of a similar technique. He did not keep the original composition, changing the multi point classical scenery into a modern perspective from a shore while preserving the vastness of the mountain range.
He led the perfection into even copying the seagulls and geese half hidden in the waves. Zhang's make is in fine line and exquisite color including gold flecks that shimmer in the sunlight. The distant mountains are colored in Mogu style.
Landscape after Wang Ximeng was sold for HK $ 370M by Sotheby's on April 30, 2022, lot 3073. Please watch the video shared by the auction house, providing a significant juxtaposition of elements of the antique and modern pictures.
1951 Cultivation on the Peaceful Land by Xu Beihong
2011 SOLD for RMB 266M by Poly
Xu Beihong, like Zhang Daqian, would place his realistic art under the double influence of Chinese tradition and worldwide modernism.
An ink and colors on paper executed by Xu in 1951 is on the theme of the farmer and his plow pulled by a buffalo. The scene also includes two other field workers, a large tree and a text inspired by a poem of the Northern Song Dynasty.
This painting executed during the Korean War is political: it wants to show the farm work as a symbol of peace while reminding that it is necessary to feed the army. It had been offered to Guo Moruo (Kuo Mo-jo), then chairman of the Chinese section of the Peace Council.
This work of exceptional size, 150 x 250 cm, was sold for RMB 266M by Poly on December 5, 2011.
An ink and colors on paper executed by Xu in 1951 is on the theme of the farmer and his plow pulled by a buffalo. The scene also includes two other field workers, a large tree and a text inspired by a poem of the Northern Song Dynasty.
This painting executed during the Korean War is political: it wants to show the farm work as a symbol of peace while reminding that it is necessary to feed the army. It had been offered to Guo Moruo (Kuo Mo-jo), then chairman of the Chinese section of the Peace Council.
This work of exceptional size, 150 x 250 cm, was sold for RMB 266M by Poly on December 5, 2011.
1955 View in Huangshan by Huang Binhong
2017 SOLD for RMB 345M by China Guardian
Chinese graphic art was not a monopoly for the professional artists. The literati had other occupations and did not need to sell their art. Still better : they have contributed by their appreciation of ancient cultures to the remarkable homogeneity of Chinese art throughout the historical period and almost to present day. In this sense the old man who brought to an unprecedented perfection in the early 1950s the very traditional landscape in ink on hanging scroll was not an artist.
Native from Zhejiang province, Huang Binhong had many passions centered on letters and ancient arts including calligraphy. He collected and carved seals, practiced fencing and played guqin. He made drawings since his youth and his favorite theme was the sublime Huangshan mountains which he visited nine times from 1883 to 1935.
Huang worked as an editor and illustrator and also as an art professor. In 1948, aged 85, he settled in Hangzhou where his teaching activity certainly left him more free time. It was from that point that he perfected the art of landscape.
He no longer travels in the mountains and works with memory and imagination, favoring the expression instead of the realism. Like the greatest masters, he does not need a preparatory drawing and does not erase. His full mastery of the width of the line generates superb contrasts enhanced by a skillful use of the voids to show mist and brook. The density of the lines reminds the Dürer hare and the overall composition is well balanced.
Huang had the nice practice of dating some of his works by his age. A view in Huangshan is dated to his 92 years, corresponding to 1955 just before his death. This 171 x 96 cm scroll was sold for RMB 345M from a lower estimate of RMB 80M by China Guardian on June 19, 2017, lot 706.
Another scenery realized in the same year, 178 x 74 cm, was sold for RMB 63M by China Guardian on May 18, 2014. It remembers the emotion of the artist comparing in an earlier trip the real view of the mountain with its interpretation by an artist of the Yuan period.
Native from Zhejiang province, Huang Binhong had many passions centered on letters and ancient arts including calligraphy. He collected and carved seals, practiced fencing and played guqin. He made drawings since his youth and his favorite theme was the sublime Huangshan mountains which he visited nine times from 1883 to 1935.
Huang worked as an editor and illustrator and also as an art professor. In 1948, aged 85, he settled in Hangzhou where his teaching activity certainly left him more free time. It was from that point that he perfected the art of landscape.
He no longer travels in the mountains and works with memory and imagination, favoring the expression instead of the realism. Like the greatest masters, he does not need a preparatory drawing and does not erase. His full mastery of the width of the line generates superb contrasts enhanced by a skillful use of the voids to show mist and brook. The density of the lines reminds the Dürer hare and the overall composition is well balanced.
Huang had the nice practice of dating some of his works by his age. A view in Huangshan is dated to his 92 years, corresponding to 1955 just before his death. This 171 x 96 cm scroll was sold for RMB 345M from a lower estimate of RMB 80M by China Guardian on June 19, 2017, lot 706.
Another scenery realized in the same year, 178 x 74 cm, was sold for RMB 63M by China Guardian on May 18, 2014. It remembers the emotion of the artist comparing in an earlier trip the real view of the mountain with its interpretation by an artist of the Yuan period.
1955 Cinq Nus by Sanyu
2019 SOLD for HK$ 304M by Christie's
When he quarreled with Roché in 1932, Sanyu lost his chances of a commercial recognition of his art. After the second world war, his works become more experimental, in search of a perfection that would mix the pictorial traditions of East and West. Most of his paintings from this period are made on masonite, which had the advantage of being cheap.
Cinq Nus, oil on masonite 120 x 172 cm, is one of the largest formats painted by the artist. The style is recognizable with its flat colors delimited by simplified curves. The nonchalant atmosphere is confirmed by a dog and a cat, both sleeping. This work, however, has several unique features.
The five women form the largest group painted by Sanyu in his career, and the only example with more than two characters in standing position. They are displayed side by side with a different attitude of the legs that evokes four successive phases of a dance before a final turning back. The bodies are not deformed although the heads are small.
The four hair colors of European women are displayed : blond, black, brunette, red. The faces are different from each other. Otherwise, nothing prevents from imagining five images in a row from a single model.
The exceptional size suggests that Sanyu wanted to make it a reference work that could be compared to the most famous paintings of modern art. The Demoiselles d'Avignon by Picasso and La Danse by Matisse are the two historical examples that stage five naked women, impossible to differentiate from each other in Matisse's case.
The Cinq Nus by Sanyu are made in three colors, pale for the flesh, dark red for the background and bright yellow for the carpet, which also evoke the work of Matisse on the expression of colors. Matisse died in 1954. Antoine Chen, author of a monograph on Sanyu, dates the Cinq Nus of 1955.
Cinq Nus was sold for HK $ 128M by Ravenel on May 30, 2011 and for HK $ 304M by Christie's on November 23, 2019, lot 7. Please watch the video shared by Christie's.
Cinq Nus, oil on masonite 120 x 172 cm, is one of the largest formats painted by the artist. The style is recognizable with its flat colors delimited by simplified curves. The nonchalant atmosphere is confirmed by a dog and a cat, both sleeping. This work, however, has several unique features.
The five women form the largest group painted by Sanyu in his career, and the only example with more than two characters in standing position. They are displayed side by side with a different attitude of the legs that evokes four successive phases of a dance before a final turning back. The bodies are not deformed although the heads are small.
The four hair colors of European women are displayed : blond, black, brunette, red. The faces are different from each other. Otherwise, nothing prevents from imagining five images in a row from a single model.
The exceptional size suggests that Sanyu wanted to make it a reference work that could be compared to the most famous paintings of modern art. The Demoiselles d'Avignon by Picasso and La Danse by Matisse are the two historical examples that stage five naked women, impossible to differentiate from each other in Matisse's case.
The Cinq Nus by Sanyu are made in three colors, pale for the flesh, dark red for the background and bright yellow for the carpet, which also evoke the work of Matisse on the expression of colors. Matisse died in 1954. Antoine Chen, author of a monograph on Sanyu, dates the Cinq Nus of 1955.
Cinq Nus was sold for HK $ 128M by Ravenel on May 30, 2011 and for HK $ 304M by Christie's on November 23, 2019, lot 7. Please watch the video shared by Christie's.
PAN TIANSHOU
Intro
Pan Tianshou spent his entire career teaching art. Specialist in ancient Chinese painting, he was director of the National Academy from 1945 to 1947 and then from 1957 until his public humiliation by the Red Guards in 1966.
Since the 1920s, he developed an innovative technique of painting with his fingers to create a wash, which he completes with a brush for a great boldness in the distribution of details. The artist enters his paper placed on the ground to produce works of very large format.
His drawings have an extremely expressive jerky line. For landscapes, he is the painter of summits, with pines shaken by the wind and eagles and crows proud of their domination.
Since the 1920s, he developed an innovative technique of painting with his fingers to create a wash, which he completes with a brush for a great boldness in the distribution of details. The artist enters his paper placed on the ground to produce works of very large format.
His drawings have an extremely expressive jerky line. For landscapes, he is the painter of summits, with pines shaken by the wind and eagles and crows proud of their domination.
1
1963 Infinite Scenery
2018 SOLD for RMB 290M by China Guardian
On November 24, 2018, China Guardian sold for RMB 290M a very high hanging scroll, 360 x 150 cm, made in 1963 by Pan Tianshou in ink and color on paper. Three titles have been proposed : Infinite scenery, Infinite scenery in dangerous peaks, View from the peak.
The composition includes a foreground with a shrub and a series of rocks that lead to the summit. The view is free towards another mountain of which only the upper part has been drawn, the impression of a majestic height being accentuated by the center of the image which is left blank.
Realized in 1958 with the same technique and an equally spectacular composition, a horizontal scroll 140 x 364 cm titled Pine after rain was sold for RMB 206M by China Guardian on November 20, 2019.
The composition includes a foreground with a shrub and a series of rocks that lead to the summit. The view is free towards another mountain of which only the upper part has been drawn, the impression of a majestic height being accentuated by the center of the image which is left blank.
Realized in 1958 with the same technique and an equally spectacular composition, a horizontal scroll 140 x 364 cm titled Pine after rain was sold for RMB 206M by China Guardian on November 20, 2019.
2
early 1960s Eagle, Rock and Mountain Flowers
2015 SOLD for RMB 280M by China Guardian
Eagle, Rock and Mountain Flowers is a large size view 182 x 142 cm painted in the early 1960s by Pan Tianshou.
The bird is standing on the edge of a cliff which is half hidden behind a pattern of flowers. From its position, it gazes at the landscape outside the field of view. With its closed wings and its neck tucked off in the shoulders, it looks endangered. A spectacular contrast is applied between the heavy inking of the foliage and the light line drawing of the background.
This undated work undeniably belongs to Pan's period of top artistic maturity just before the brutal termination of his career in 1966 by the Cultural Revolution. It surfaced in 1979, eight years after his vile death in custody.
It was sold for RMB 280M by China Guardian on May 17, 2015, lot 707.
The bird is standing on the edge of a cliff which is half hidden behind a pattern of flowers. From its position, it gazes at the landscape outside the field of view. With its closed wings and its neck tucked off in the shoulders, it looks endangered. A spectacular contrast is applied between the heavy inking of the foliage and the light line drawing of the background.
This undated work undeniably belongs to Pan's period of top artistic maturity just before the brutal termination of his career in 1966 by the Cultural Revolution. It surfaced in 1979, eight years after his vile death in custody.
It was sold for RMB 280M by China Guardian on May 17, 2015, lot 707.
1964 Red Mountains by Li Keran
2012 SOLD for RMB 293M by Poly
The beautiful mountains of China had inspired artists for centuries. With the approach of the Cultural Revolution, Li Keran provides this classic theme with a political significance.
In 1962 his rocky landscapes become deep red. The mountains are powerful towers that occupy almost the whole picture, limiting the place left to the sky. Hanging scrolls displaying down to the valley are also a tradition in Chinese landscape art.
The steep mountains of Li Keran symbolize the domination of the political regime over the wilderness and the red hills that extend to the horizon demonstrate that this power is unlimited. The small houses quietly nestled in the valleys or on the mountainside attest to the protection provided by the regime to the people. The red mountains become a protection for the fertile valley.
A poem by the Great Helmsman appears in a border of the image, just like Chinese artists always calligraphed within their scrolls the texts of the greatest philosophers.
Mountains in red, 131 x 84 cm, was painted by Li Keran in 1964 shortly before the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution. The strident red of the landscape could please the government. Groups of white houses maintain a popular simplicity. A depth effect is brought by the reds that are gradually stronger from background to foreground.
It illustrates a 1925 poem by Chairman Mao : “I see thousands of hills in crimsoned view, the woods piling up in deep dye”. This work includes a political refinement : the high mountain does not fully hide the view : the distant hills in the top left of the picture symbolize the unlimited future of Maoism.
It was sold for RMB 293M by Poly on June 3, 2012. The image is shared post sale by Art Market Monitor.
In 1962 his rocky landscapes become deep red. The mountains are powerful towers that occupy almost the whole picture, limiting the place left to the sky. Hanging scrolls displaying down to the valley are also a tradition in Chinese landscape art.
The steep mountains of Li Keran symbolize the domination of the political regime over the wilderness and the red hills that extend to the horizon demonstrate that this power is unlimited. The small houses quietly nestled in the valleys or on the mountainside attest to the protection provided by the regime to the people. The red mountains become a protection for the fertile valley.
A poem by the Great Helmsman appears in a border of the image, just like Chinese artists always calligraphed within their scrolls the texts of the greatest philosophers.
Mountains in red, 131 x 84 cm, was painted by Li Keran in 1964 shortly before the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution. The strident red of the landscape could please the government. Groups of white houses maintain a popular simplicity. A depth effect is brought by the reds that are gradually stronger from background to foreground.
It illustrates a 1925 poem by Chairman Mao : “I see thousands of hills in crimsoned view, the woods piling up in deep dye”. This work includes a political refinement : the high mountain does not fully hide the view : the distant hills in the top left of the picture symbolize the unlimited future of Maoism.
It was sold for RMB 293M by Poly on June 3, 2012. The image is shared post sale by Art Market Monitor.
1985 Juin-Octobre 1985 by Zao Wou-Ki
2018 SOLD for HK$ 510M by Sotheby's
The architect I.M. Pei has considerably influenced the style of the great modern cities. When his fame becomes international, he revisits his native China. In the 1970s the Far East no longer wants its urbanism to follow the West. They always desire higher, more spectacular, more functional. Pei is building an office skyscraper 198 meters high in Singapore.
Zao Wou-Ki also made his own return to his sources. In the 1980s the originality of his abstract paintings inspired by East and West met with great success in the Far East.
Pei is creating in Singapore a complex named Raffles City based on a tower and two hotels, and incorporating a shopping center and a convention center. In 1985 the project is advanced enough to anticipate the interior design. Zao is traveling in the Far East. Pei makes him visit the Raffles site and commissions him a gigantic painting for adorning the grand lobby of the main building alongside abstractions by Ellsworth Kelly and Kenneth Noland in the minimalist taste of the architect.
Back in France, Zao prepares this work with a passion comparable to Monet opening with the Grandes Décorations the ultimate phase of his career. The result is a triptych of oils on canvas, 2.80 m x 10 m overall, which is installed in 1986 as planned and will remain there until 2005. Contrary to Zao's usual practice, the title is not a mere date but a period, Juin-Octobre 1985, thus confirming the prolonged attention given by the artist in its execution.
Juin-Octobre 1985 is the most monumental artwork in Zao's entire career. According to his inspiration in that decade, it evokes the mystical unicity between nature and the infinite. The incandescent center is seen beyond a dark curtain accented by strident blue.
It was sold for HK $ 510M from an expectation beyond HK $ 350M by Sotheby's on September 30, 2018, lot 1004.
Zao Wou-Ki also made his own return to his sources. In the 1980s the originality of his abstract paintings inspired by East and West met with great success in the Far East.
Pei is creating in Singapore a complex named Raffles City based on a tower and two hotels, and incorporating a shopping center and a convention center. In 1985 the project is advanced enough to anticipate the interior design. Zao is traveling in the Far East. Pei makes him visit the Raffles site and commissions him a gigantic painting for adorning the grand lobby of the main building alongside abstractions by Ellsworth Kelly and Kenneth Noland in the minimalist taste of the architect.
Back in France, Zao prepares this work with a passion comparable to Monet opening with the Grandes Décorations the ultimate phase of his career. The result is a triptych of oils on canvas, 2.80 m x 10 m overall, which is installed in 1986 as planned and will remain there until 2005. Contrary to Zao's usual practice, the title is not a mere date but a period, Juin-Octobre 1985, thus confirming the prolonged attention given by the artist in its execution.
Juin-Octobre 1985 is the most monumental artwork in Zao's entire career. According to his inspiration in that decade, it evokes the mystical unicity between nature and the infinite. The incandescent center is seen beyond a dark curtain accented by strident blue.
It was sold for HK $ 510M from an expectation beyond HK $ 350M by Sotheby's on September 30, 2018, lot 1004.
2013 The Grand Snowing Mountains by Cui Ruzhuo
2016 SOLD for HK$ 307M by Poly
Cui Ruzhuo is a connoisseur and keen collector of fine calligraphy and painting works from the Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties to modern masters. He is a doctoral tutor at the China Academy of Art in Beijing.
Cui assembles polyptychs composed of vertical panels painted in line and wash on paper in his signature finger ink technique. A single monumental work may occupy a full wall in an exhibition.
His themes appeal to the Chinese sensitivity. His favorite is the unlimited landscape of snowy mountains, eternally indifferent to men.
A set of eight panels made in 2005 for a total size of 202 x 988 cm was sold for HK $ 77M by Christie's on May 28, 2013, lot 1347.
Another Landscape in snow, painted in 2006, was sold for HK $ 184M by Poly on April 7, 2014, lot 2017. This ink and color on paper is an unfragmented hand scroll 64 cm x 36 m plus a frontispiece.
The Grand Snowing Mountains, inspired by Jiangnan, was painted in ink and color on paper by Cui Ruzhuo in 2013. It was sold by Poly on April 7, 2013 for HK $ 236M, lot 2314, just after being prepared as a set of eight mounted panels 292 x 143 cm. It is illustrated in the 2015 post sale release.
A similar example, or possibly the same after rework, was sold by the same auction house on April 4, 2016 for HK $ 307M from a lower estimate of HK $ 150M as a mounted set of six for an overall 300 x 870 cm, lot 1213.
Cui assembles polyptychs composed of vertical panels painted in line and wash on paper in his signature finger ink technique. A single monumental work may occupy a full wall in an exhibition.
His themes appeal to the Chinese sensitivity. His favorite is the unlimited landscape of snowy mountains, eternally indifferent to men.
A set of eight panels made in 2005 for a total size of 202 x 988 cm was sold for HK $ 77M by Christie's on May 28, 2013, lot 1347.
Another Landscape in snow, painted in 2006, was sold for HK $ 184M by Poly on April 7, 2014, lot 2017. This ink and color on paper is an unfragmented hand scroll 64 cm x 36 m plus a frontispiece.
The Grand Snowing Mountains, inspired by Jiangnan, was painted in ink and color on paper by Cui Ruzhuo in 2013. It was sold by Poly on April 7, 2013 for HK $ 236M, lot 2314, just after being prepared as a set of eight mounted panels 292 x 143 cm. It is illustrated in the 2015 post sale release.
A similar example, or possibly the same after rework, was sold by the same auction house on April 4, 2016 for HK $ 307M from a lower estimate of HK $ 150M as a mounted set of six for an overall 300 x 870 cm, lot 1213.
