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Museum exhibits show influence of Chinese artists' sojourns in US
By Xu Wenwen |
July 16, 2013, Tuesday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
IN the first half of the 20th century, as China was convulsed with wars, many Chinese artists began to go abroad to practice their calling.
The United States was in a stage of vigorous development and became a top destination for artists, many of whom were traditional Chinese painters from Hangzhou, Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong and Taiwan.
The works they left are considered a precious record of that time, and this pioneering "East meets West" art is now at the Zhejiang Art Museum in Hangzhou. A total of 110 pieces by 30 Chinese artists living in the US are included in the exhibition "Chinese Ink and Wash Painting in America."
Ink and wash painting is done with a brush and black ink only - in the past it was considered the province of the educated elite in China.
"Those artists born and educated in China who moved to America in their youth and middle age to carry on their art careers have made astonishing explorations in modern Chinese ink and wash painting," said Shu Jianhua, the show's curator and the director of the Silicon Valley Asian Art Center in Santa Clara, California.
The exhibition is also co-sponsored by the Los Angeles Chinese Cultural Center, with the assistance of the Hangzhou Qinzhe Art Center.
The artists include 10 from the Western US, two from the Midwest and 18 from the East Coast. All of them remained Chinese ink and wash painters, yet they were influenced by Western oil painting and modern abstract expressionism.
The earliest work among the 110 exhibits, "Three-color Violet" by Yang Lingfu, is from 1946. It is like a watercolor painting on construction paper, and even includes a red seal that was drawn in instead of an actual stamp. Chinese painters traditionally use a seal as their signature.
Yang was the first in the group to move to the US, in 1936. She, born into a prominent family in Jiangsu Province in 1888, had studied under several famous artists and became the principal of Northeast Art School in Liaoning Province as well as a well-known poet.
In 1934 she left the country after Japanese invaders tried to get her to back their occupation. She fled to Germany and Canada before landing in the US. She taught Chinese language, culture and painting at the University of California at Berkeley and Stanford University, and had founded an art academy that bore her name in California.
Another big name among the group is Zhang Daqian, one of the most prodigious Chinese artists of the 20th century, who became famous as a traditionalist painter yet later also was renowned as a modern impressionist and expressionist painter.
He left China in 1949 and lived in many places including Europe, the United States, South America and Southeast Asia. The "Ink Lotus" painting in the exhibition, done when he was 65 and living in Brazil, is a classical work of the splash-ink technique.
Zhang's work helped popularize traditional Chinese painting skills around the world. In his late 50s, Zhang also pioneered splash-color art by coupling splash-ink techniques and Western painting methods.
Many Chinese artists who moved aboard invented new fashions of Chinese ink wash painting by adopting Western art techniques and concepts, or drawing Western oil paintings with an Asian inspiration.
Some combined oil and ink, some mixed ink and acrylic and painted on canvas, some took on subjects seldom treated in Chinese paintings.
"I think it's a discovery of a new world of art," said Michael Sullivan, a British art historian and an important Western figure in the field of modern Chinese art history and criticism. Sullivan was speaking at the Silicon Valley Asian Art Center in March, according to the museum.
"It was an explosion of Chinese art, in response to the challenge of the West, in which the Chinese could take what they wanted and needed from the West to express themselves. On one hand, there's fascination with Western art, on the other hand, the growing self-confidence of Chinese art."
Venue: Hall 7-10, Zhejiang Art Museum, 138 Nanshan Rd
Tel: (0571) 8707-8700
Admission: Free
The United States was in a stage of vigorous development and became a top destination for artists, many of whom were traditional Chinese painters from Hangzhou, Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong and Taiwan.
The works they left are considered a precious record of that time, and this pioneering "East meets West" art is now at the Zhejiang Art Museum in Hangzhou. A total of 110 pieces by 30 Chinese artists living in the US are included in the exhibition "Chinese Ink and Wash Painting in America."
Ink and wash painting is done with a brush and black ink only - in the past it was considered the province of the educated elite in China.
"Those artists born and educated in China who moved to America in their youth and middle age to carry on their art careers have made astonishing explorations in modern Chinese ink and wash painting," said Shu Jianhua, the show's curator and the director of the Silicon Valley Asian Art Center in Santa Clara, California.
The exhibition is also co-sponsored by the Los Angeles Chinese Cultural Center, with the assistance of the Hangzhou Qinzhe Art Center.
The artists include 10 from the Western US, two from the Midwest and 18 from the East Coast. All of them remained Chinese ink and wash painters, yet they were influenced by Western oil painting and modern abstract expressionism.
The earliest work among the 110 exhibits, "Three-color Violet" by Yang Lingfu, is from 1946. It is like a watercolor painting on construction paper, and even includes a red seal that was drawn in instead of an actual stamp. Chinese painters traditionally use a seal as their signature.
Yang was the first in the group to move to the US, in 1936. She, born into a prominent family in Jiangsu Province in 1888, had studied under several famous artists and became the principal of Northeast Art School in Liaoning Province as well as a well-known poet.
In 1934 she left the country after Japanese invaders tried to get her to back their occupation. She fled to Germany and Canada before landing in the US. She taught Chinese language, culture and painting at the University of California at Berkeley and Stanford University, and had founded an art academy that bore her name in California.
Another big name among the group is Zhang Daqian, one of the most prodigious Chinese artists of the 20th century, who became famous as a traditionalist painter yet later also was renowned as a modern impressionist and expressionist painter.
He left China in 1949 and lived in many places including Europe, the United States, South America and Southeast Asia. The "Ink Lotus" painting in the exhibition, done when he was 65 and living in Brazil, is a classical work of the splash-ink technique.
Zhang's work helped popularize traditional Chinese painting skills around the world. In his late 50s, Zhang also pioneered splash-color art by coupling splash-ink techniques and Western painting methods.
Many Chinese artists who moved aboard invented new fashions of Chinese ink wash painting by adopting Western art techniques and concepts, or drawing Western oil paintings with an Asian inspiration.
Some combined oil and ink, some mixed ink and acrylic and painted on canvas, some took on subjects seldom treated in Chinese paintings.
"I think it's a discovery of a new world of art," said Michael Sullivan, a British art historian and an important Western figure in the field of modern Chinese art history and criticism. Sullivan was speaking at the Silicon Valley Asian Art Center in March, according to the museum.
"It was an explosion of Chinese art, in response to the challenge of the West, in which the Chinese could take what they wanted and needed from the West to express themselves. On one hand, there's fascination with Western art, on the other hand, the growing self-confidence of Chinese art."
Venue: Hall 7-10, Zhejiang Art Museum, 138 Nanshan Rd
Tel: (0571) 8707-8700
Admission: Free
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