New Chinese Painting
See also : Current art Mountains in China Wu Guanzhong
Chronology : 1988 1993 1996 1997 21st century 2001 2006 2010-2019 2017
Chronology : 1988 1993 1996 1997 21st century 2001 2006 2010-2019 2017
1988 The Zen Garden
2019 SOLD for RMB 144M including premium
Wu Guanzhong is the most complete artist of the post-Maoist period. Resolutely modernist and inspired by both East and West, he makes up for the time lost during the Cultural Revolution by treating many themes from realism to abstraction in all the graphic techniques.
Wu begins with a preliminary sketch that allows him to choose between an oil on canvas and an ink on paper which he paints in an impulsive gesture. Looking for the elemental forms that constitute his subject, he reworks his figuration and his color up to an ultimate state. Lion Grove Garden, ink and colors on paper 144 x 297 cm painted in 1988, is an example led by the artist to an almost complete abstraction.
The city of Suzhou, 100 km away from Shanghai, is famous for its gardens, several of which have been classified together as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. Lion Grove was created by a Zen monk under the Yuan dynasty and was so named for the likeness of one of its rocks with a reclining lion. The garden is bordered by a pond and includes a grotto.
Wu is interested in this site maintained without religious attributes. His meditation brings a pattern of lines and spots of various colors, superseding the real topography of the rock. Two pavilions and a bridge appear beyond the rock. Simplified shapes simulate visitors in the pavilions and fish in the pond.
The whole is looking like a huge cliff by the sea with boats. The shape predominated the theme, responding to the artist's deepest conceptions. Do not search for the lion.
Lion Grove Garden was sold for RMB 115M including premium by Poly on June 3, 2011 and will be sold on June 2 in Beijing by China Guardian, lot 383.
Wu begins with a preliminary sketch that allows him to choose between an oil on canvas and an ink on paper which he paints in an impulsive gesture. Looking for the elemental forms that constitute his subject, he reworks his figuration and his color up to an ultimate state. Lion Grove Garden, ink and colors on paper 144 x 297 cm painted in 1988, is an example led by the artist to an almost complete abstraction.
The city of Suzhou, 100 km away from Shanghai, is famous for its gardens, several of which have been classified together as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. Lion Grove was created by a Zen monk under the Yuan dynasty and was so named for the likeness of one of its rocks with a reclining lion. The garden is bordered by a pond and includes a grotto.
Wu is interested in this site maintained without religious attributes. His meditation brings a pattern of lines and spots of various colors, superseding the real topography of the rock. Two pavilions and a bridge appear beyond the rock. Simplified shapes simulate visitors in the pavilions and fish in the pond.
The whole is looking like a huge cliff by the sea with boats. The shape predominated the theme, responding to the artist's deepest conceptions. Do not search for the lion.
Lion Grove Garden was sold for RMB 115M including premium by Poly on June 3, 2011 and will be sold on June 2 in Beijing by China Guardian, lot 383.
1993 Warm Spring in the Jade Pavilion by Chen Yifei
2017 SOLD for RMB 150M by China Guardian
Chen Yifei loved pretty women and beautiful clothes. Trained in oil painting by a Soviet artist, he abandons without regret the political themes after the Cultural Revolution but maintains a fully realistic line with shimmering colors.
Returning to Shanghai in 1990 after ten years in the United States, he observes that women are badly dressed. He will devote a considerable energy to remedy it while reviving ancient traditions.
He paints groups of beauties who would have their place in a fashion show. He also became a filmmaker, created the Layefe brand first for elegant and affordable clothing and then also for interior design, piloted a model agency and died of overwork in 2005.
In his paintings graceful women let themselves be quietly admired in the manner of the Japanese geishas.
Warm Spring in the Jade Pavilion was sold for RMB 150M by China Guardian on December 19, 2017. It was shared post sale by China Daily. This oil painting i170 x 244 cm executed in 1993 is depicting the life in Shanghai in the 1930s with many characters gathering around a tea table.
Returning to Shanghai in 1990 after ten years in the United States, he observes that women are badly dressed. He will devote a considerable energy to remedy it while reviving ancient traditions.
He paints groups of beauties who would have their place in a fashion show. He also became a filmmaker, created the Layefe brand first for elegant and affordable clothing and then also for interior design, piloted a model agency and died of overwork in 2005.
In his paintings graceful women let themselves be quietly admired in the manner of the Japanese geishas.
Warm Spring in the Jade Pavilion was sold for RMB 150M by China Guardian on December 19, 2017. It was shared post sale by China Daily. This oil painting i170 x 244 cm executed in 1993 is depicting the life in Shanghai in the 1930s with many characters gathering around a tea table.
1994 Two Swallows by Wu Guanzhong
2018 SOLD for RMB 113M by Poly
Shuangyan, better described as Two swallows, was a favorite modernist theme of Wu Guanzhong, conceived by him in 1981 during a sketching visit in Suzhou with his students.
It features a range of five low Jiangnan dwellings with white walls integrating a few narrow black doors and a single tiny window near the right side. These minimalist buildings reflect in a waterway. The only living beings is a pair of swallows coming and going in the blue sky in a varying position from an opus to another. The roofs are made of a single narrow black line. A tree marks the spring calling and a stone bench is empty. Some steps dive into the water.
Two examples were sold by Poly on December 6, 2018. An ink on paper 69 x 137 cm made in 1988 was sold for RMB 54M, lot 3202. An oil on canvas 69 x 140 cm painted in 1994 was sold for RMB 113M, lot 3203. It is illustrated in the post sale report by China Daily.
The blind walls bring the impression that the house is not finished. The rectangular shapes and the contrasts supersede the realism. The swallows are a reminiscence of Wu's happy childhood in his beloved Jiangnan.
An undated ink and color on paper of same size titled Spring Calling was sold for HK $ 17.5M by Christie's on May 31, 2011, lot 2771.
It features a range of five low Jiangnan dwellings with white walls integrating a few narrow black doors and a single tiny window near the right side. These minimalist buildings reflect in a waterway. The only living beings is a pair of swallows coming and going in the blue sky in a varying position from an opus to another. The roofs are made of a single narrow black line. A tree marks the spring calling and a stone bench is empty. Some steps dive into the water.
Two examples were sold by Poly on December 6, 2018. An ink on paper 69 x 137 cm made in 1988 was sold for RMB 54M, lot 3202. An oil on canvas 69 x 140 cm painted in 1994 was sold for RMB 113M, lot 3203. It is illustrated in the post sale report by China Daily.
The blind walls bring the impression that the house is not finished. The rectangular shapes and the contrasts supersede the realism. The swallows are a reminiscence of Wu's happy childhood in his beloved Jiangnan.
An undated ink and color on paper of same size titled Spring Calling was sold for HK $ 17.5M by Christie's on May 31, 2011, lot 2771.
1996 Masks by Zeng Fanzhi
2020 SOLD for RMB 160M by Yongle
In his early series on Hospitals and Meats, Zeng Fanzhi brings a cruel vision of the relationship between suffering and indifference, and between human beings and flesh. A native of Wuhan, Zeng moved to Beijing in 1993. Like Kirchner in Berlin in 1911, he did not succeed in establishing in the big city a network of social relations that met his emotional need.
He begins in 1994 his series of the Masks showing the dissimulation of people behind the social conventions. The characters hide their personality for reasons that are probably their own, canceling any specificity. Relations between humans are artificial.
At the same time Zhang Xiaogang's Big Family expresses a similar discomfort of identifying the personality but in an opposite way : individuals are all physically different but their bleak lives are interchangeable.
The red scarf of the Young Pioneers is a rallying symbol of Zeng's masked characters. It also expresses the pride and unease of his own difference. This recruitment is offered to almost all schoolchildren as an incentive to enter the party line but the young Zeng, too bad a pupil or perhaps too emotional or undisciplined, never got it.
It is usually difficult to decide in a Zeng Mask image whether or not we see the real face of a character. This rule has two rare exceptions: self-portraits without the artificial smile and groups where the repetition of the same lines on all the figures reveals the presence of the masks.
Mask 1996 No. 6 is an oil on canvas in diptych for a 200 x 360 cm total size. Eight young Chinese people, all but one with the same face, differentiated by their height and their hairstyle including three girls, are lined up like for a group photography, with hands on the shoulders of others to simulate their comradeship. Everyone has the red scarf confirming their lack of freedom. They all smile without reason, like for a family or team sport photo.
Sold for HK $ 75M by Christie's on May 24, 2008 at lot 156 from a lower estimate of HK $ 15M, No. 6 suddenly attracted the attention of the art market on the young painters of the Chinese social mockery, Zeng, Zhang and Yue Minjun, obscuring for a few years the variety of Chinese painting subsequent to the events of Tiananmen Square. It was sold for HK $ 105M on April 3, 2017 by Poly, lot 173, and for RMB 160M by Yongle on August 20, 2020.
He begins in 1994 his series of the Masks showing the dissimulation of people behind the social conventions. The characters hide their personality for reasons that are probably their own, canceling any specificity. Relations between humans are artificial.
At the same time Zhang Xiaogang's Big Family expresses a similar discomfort of identifying the personality but in an opposite way : individuals are all physically different but their bleak lives are interchangeable.
The red scarf of the Young Pioneers is a rallying symbol of Zeng's masked characters. It also expresses the pride and unease of his own difference. This recruitment is offered to almost all schoolchildren as an incentive to enter the party line but the young Zeng, too bad a pupil or perhaps too emotional or undisciplined, never got it.
It is usually difficult to decide in a Zeng Mask image whether or not we see the real face of a character. This rule has two rare exceptions: self-portraits without the artificial smile and groups where the repetition of the same lines on all the figures reveals the presence of the masks.
Mask 1996 No. 6 is an oil on canvas in diptych for a 200 x 360 cm total size. Eight young Chinese people, all but one with the same face, differentiated by their height and their hairstyle including three girls, are lined up like for a group photography, with hands on the shoulders of others to simulate their comradeship. Everyone has the red scarf confirming their lack of freedom. They all smile without reason, like for a family or team sport photo.
Sold for HK $ 75M by Christie's on May 24, 2008 at lot 156 from a lower estimate of HK $ 15M, No. 6 suddenly attracted the attention of the art market on the young painters of the Chinese social mockery, Zeng, Zhang and Yue Minjun, obscuring for a few years the variety of Chinese painting subsequent to the events of Tiananmen Square. It was sold for HK $ 105M on April 3, 2017 by Poly, lot 173, and for RMB 160M by Yongle on August 20, 2020.
1997 The Zhou Village by Wu Guanzhong
2016 SOLD for HK$ 236M including premium by Poly
narrated in 2020
Wu Guanzhong is a full range artist who integrated tradition and modernism. After the torments of the Cultural Revolution, he endeavored to make people love his native region, Jiangnan, south of the Yangtze River. He observes landscapes and villages by bringing the utmost importance to their geometric decomposition.
Suzhou is a big city enjoying 2,500 years of history. Wu took in 1983 as one of his favorite themes the Lion Grove Garden, with a texture of rocks that reaches the limits of abstraction. An ink and colors on paper 144 x 297 cm painted in 1988 was sold for RMB 144M including premium by China Guardian on June 2, 2019.
The Zhou village is also located in Suzhou. On April 4, 2016, Poly sold for HK $ 236M including premium a painting 148 x 297 cm made in 1997, which transposed to oil an ink and colors made in 1986. It is illustrated in the report of the sale shared by Art Market Monitor.
The old village is appealing to tourists, with its pattern of houses huddled together. Suzhou is the Venice of the East which amazed Marco Polo with its canals crossed by a multitude of small stone bridges.
The image is seen in a slightly plunging perspective. The village is symmetrical, with its central axis on the very narrow street leading to the bridge. The edge of the canal and the horizon form an oval, like in a fish eye photo. This harmony of curves is reinforced by the arched shapes of the bridge.
Suzhou is a big city enjoying 2,500 years of history. Wu took in 1983 as one of his favorite themes the Lion Grove Garden, with a texture of rocks that reaches the limits of abstraction. An ink and colors on paper 144 x 297 cm painted in 1988 was sold for RMB 144M including premium by China Guardian on June 2, 2019.
The Zhou village is also located in Suzhou. On April 4, 2016, Poly sold for HK $ 236M including premium a painting 148 x 297 cm made in 1997, which transposed to oil an ink and colors made in 1986. It is illustrated in the report of the sale shared by Art Market Monitor.
The old village is appealing to tourists, with its pattern of houses huddled together. Suzhou is the Venice of the East which amazed Marco Polo with its canals crossed by a multitude of small stone bridges.
The image is seen in a slightly plunging perspective. The village is symmetrical, with its central axis on the very narrow street leading to the bridge. The edge of the canal and the horizon form an oval, like in a fish eye photo. This harmony of curves is reinforced by the arched shapes of the bridge.
2001 The Traitor with the Yellow Tie
2013 SOLD 180 MHK$ including premium
The mask in the series of paintings by Zeng Fanzhi is used to express what is artificial in the integration of young Chinese into globalization.
The mask is worn by a single character or by all characters in a group. In the latter case, the political message of the artist becomes stronger and more readable.
On 24 May 2008, Christie's sold HK $ 75M including premium Mask Series 1996 No. 6, oil on canvas 200 x 360 cm. Eight Chinese are aligned and facing the viewer as happy members of a winning sports team. The smile is an effect brought by the mask, but the red scarf recalls the harsh realities of their social condition.
On October 5 in Hong Kong, Sotheby's sells The Last Supper. This oil on canvas was painted in 2001 in large format, 220 x 400 cm. This is in some way the political and artistic culmination of the entire Mask series, and the auction house expects more than HK $ 80M. The artwork comes from the Ullens collection. It is illustrated on the release shared by ArtDaily.
It is a remake of Leonardo's Last Supper. Behind the masks, the thirteen characters are young Chinese, still recognizable by their red scarves. The traitor has no scarf but a golden tie. He has already decided to imitate the West and sell himself to capitalists.
The next step could be a question: who is right between the twelve traditionalists and the traitor, regarding the development of contemporary Chinese civilization?
POST SALE COMMENT
Introduced as the culmination of the first part of Zeng's career, this painting was sold for HK $ 180M including premium.
I invite you to play the video shared by Sotheby's.
The mask is worn by a single character or by all characters in a group. In the latter case, the political message of the artist becomes stronger and more readable.
On 24 May 2008, Christie's sold HK $ 75M including premium Mask Series 1996 No. 6, oil on canvas 200 x 360 cm. Eight Chinese are aligned and facing the viewer as happy members of a winning sports team. The smile is an effect brought by the mask, but the red scarf recalls the harsh realities of their social condition.
On October 5 in Hong Kong, Sotheby's sells The Last Supper. This oil on canvas was painted in 2001 in large format, 220 x 400 cm. This is in some way the political and artistic culmination of the entire Mask series, and the auction house expects more than HK $ 80M. The artwork comes from the Ullens collection. It is illustrated on the release shared by ArtDaily.
It is a remake of Leonardo's Last Supper. Behind the masks, the thirteen characters are young Chinese, still recognizable by their red scarves. The traitor has no scarf but a golden tie. He has already decided to imitate the West and sell himself to capitalists.
The next step could be a question: who is right between the twelve traditionalists and the traitor, regarding the development of contemporary Chinese civilization?
POST SALE COMMENT
Introduced as the culmination of the first part of Zeng's career, this painting was sold for HK $ 180M including premium.
I invite you to play the video shared by Sotheby's.
CUI RUZHUO
1
2006 Landscape in Snow
2014 SOLD for HK$ 184M by Poly
Cui Ruzhuo 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.
The themes chosen by Cui appeal to the Chinese sensitivity. His favorite is the unlimited landscape of snowy mountains, eternally indifferent to men.
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 themes chosen by Cui appeal to the Chinese sensitivity. His favorite is the unlimited landscape of snowy mountains, eternally indifferent to men.
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.
2
2013 The Grand Snowing Mountains
2016 SOLD for HK$ 307M by Poly
Cui Ruzhuo 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.
The themes chosen by Cui appeal to the Chinese sensitivity. On the theme of the lotus, a set of eight scrolls 247 x 123 cm each was sold at lot 2237 for HK $ 124M by Christie's on 29 November 2011. The lotus are drawn with distorted shapes.
This work is dated from early summer xinmao year matching 2011 CE, a few months before its auction.The Grand Snowing Mountains, inspired by Jiangnan, was painted in ink and color on paper by Cui in 2013.
It was probably unpaid after being 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 was sold at the same venue 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. The similarity between the two lots leaves no doubt that it is the same piece.
The themes chosen by Cui appeal to the Chinese sensitivity. On the theme of the lotus, a set of eight scrolls 247 x 123 cm each was sold at lot 2237 for HK $ 124M by Christie's on 29 November 2011. The lotus are drawn with distorted shapes.
This work is dated from early summer xinmao year matching 2011 CE, a few months before its auction.The Grand Snowing Mountains, inspired by Jiangnan, was painted in ink and color on paper by Cui in 2013.
It was probably unpaid after being 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 was sold at the same venue 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. The similarity between the two lots leaves no doubt that it is the same piece.
3
2017 Twelve Screens of Landscape
2017 SOLD for RMB 240M by Poly
A set of twelve painted in 2017 by Cui was sold for RMB 240M by Poly in December 2017.
It is illustrated in the post sale report shared by The Value. The reported title, Twelve screens of finger ink landscape, refers to the Cui's signature painting technique.
It is illustrated in the post sale report shared by The Value. The reported title, Twelve screens of finger ink landscape, refers to the Cui's signature painting technique.
4
2019 Rafting in Wind and Rain
2023 SOLD for RMB 230M by Yongle
Rafting in wind and rain, ink and color on paper 395 x 255 cm painted in 2019 by Cui Ruzhuo, features a boat brought home in harsh condition in a mountain surrounding.
It was sold for RMB 230M by Yongle on February 24, 2023.
It was sold for RMB 230M by Yongle on February 24, 2023.