Born in 1920, Zao Wou-Ki and Chu Teh-Chun both started their art studies in Hangzhou in 1935. Their school's director was Lin Fengmian who had spent eight years in France and was promoting a mixing of traditional Chinese art and Western modern art.
Lin's students were to settle in Paris, Zao in 1948 and Chu in 1955. Both appreciated soon after their respective arrivals that abstraction was more promising than Lin's figurative art for the construction of their global art. However Chu's abstract art was not triggered by Zao but by a visit in a posthumous exhibition of paintings by Nicolas de Staël.
The influence of their Chinese training was similar. They mastered the subtle wash mingling of Song drawings and the communion with the observers by the calligraphic gesture. Both acquired an extensive range of colors inspired by abstract expressionism.
After a completely abstract period, Chu is inspired by reminiscences of the mountains of his native province. A diptych of overall size 195 x 243 cm painted in 1963 was sold for HK $ 71M including premium by Christie's in Hong Kong on November 23, 2013. This oil on canvas is listed in the same auction room on November 24, lot 21.
This artwork is abstract, but it displays the perfect reflection of a mountain landscape in a lake. The dull hues of the rock are dotted with brightly colored spots reminiscent of the explosions of lights in the villages of S.H. Raza who was living in France since 1950.
Chu's art offers his poetic impression of nature. In that phase it is different from the abstract boiling landscapes painted by Zao. From 1965 Zao will also realize abstract views imitating the colors and shapes of snow-capped mountains.
unsold
Lin's students were to settle in Paris, Zao in 1948 and Chu in 1955. Both appreciated soon after their respective arrivals that abstraction was more promising than Lin's figurative art for the construction of their global art. However Chu's abstract art was not triggered by Zao but by a visit in a posthumous exhibition of paintings by Nicolas de Staël.
The influence of their Chinese training was similar. They mastered the subtle wash mingling of Song drawings and the communion with the observers by the calligraphic gesture. Both acquired an extensive range of colors inspired by abstract expressionism.
After a completely abstract period, Chu is inspired by reminiscences of the mountains of his native province. A diptych of overall size 195 x 243 cm painted in 1963 was sold for HK $ 71M including premium by Christie's in Hong Kong on November 23, 2013. This oil on canvas is listed in the same auction room on November 24, lot 21.
This artwork is abstract, but it displays the perfect reflection of a mountain landscape in a lake. The dull hues of the rock are dotted with brightly colored spots reminiscent of the explosions of lights in the villages of S.H. Raza who was living in France since 1950.
Chu's art offers his poetic impression of nature. In that phase it is different from the abstract boiling landscapes painted by Zao. From 1965 Zao will also realize abstract views imitating the colors and shapes of snow-capped mountains.
unsold
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