The Art of Wu GuanzhongLee Kwun Leung Vincent

The biography of Wu Guanzhong Wu Guanzhong (吳冠中 ) passed

away on 25 June 2010 Before his death, he donated

many ink and oil paintings to Hong Kong Museum of Art.

Mr. Henry Tang (唐英年 ), Former Chief Secretary of the HKSAR Government, paid a great tribute to Master Wu’s dedication to the Hong Kong art scene in Beijing. The RTHK helped produce a documentary programme as a kind of commemoration.

The biography of Wu Guanzhong

Mr. Henry Tang visited Master Wu’s homeplace in Beijing and thanked his donations on behalf of the HKSAR Leisure and Cultural Services Department in January 2010, five months before his death.

Source: http://archive.news.gov.hk/isd/ebulletin/en/category/healthandcommunity/100202/html/100202en05002.htm#

Wu Guanzhong’s art teachers

During his days at National Hangzhou Academy of Art, Pan Tianshou (潘天壽) and Lin Fengmian (林風眠 ), two prominent Modern Chinese-ink masters from the period of Lingnan Fine Arts, were his art instructors.

The biography of Wu Guanzhong

Wu Guanzhong , together with Zhu Dequn (朱德群 ), studied at National Hangzhou Academy of Art. Later on, Master Wu had a chance to further his art researches at Paris Academy of Fine Arts.

Sino-Western aesthetic coexistence

No matter in Paris or in China, Wu Guanzhong kept exchanging academic views with Zhu Dequn (朱德群 , Left) and Zhao Wuji (趙無極 , Right), for merging the aesthetic elements of Chinese literati painting with the Post-Impressionistic, Rococo and Expressionistic oil-painting styles while rendering with the creation of Modern Chinese ink and oil painting.

Chinese Communist Party hated Master Wu’s French Romanticism Wu Guanzhong explored his unique

style of oil painting with both Chinese and French features. But, as China became governed by the Communist Party, Mao Zedong strictly requested the Mainland art intellectuals to learn “Leninist School of Realistic Thoughts” from the Soviet Union.

Witnessing that Wu Guanzhong’s oil-painting style was much influenced by the trend of Romanticism due to his studying experiences in Paris, Mao Zedong labeled Wu as a “pro-Capitalist” sinner and delivered him to suffer from “thought remodification” tortures inside the concentration camp as similar as Li Keran (李可染) and Wan Qingli (萬青力) did during the Cultural Revolution.

British-Hong Kong Government preserved Master Wu’s French Romanticism During the Cultural

Revolution, Hong Kong was still the colony of the UK. Knowing that Wu Guanzhong was greatly suppressed by Mao Zedong, the Governor noted the Urban Council to systematically collect and preserve Wu Guanzhong’s paintings inside the Hong Kong Museum of Art.

British-Hong Kong Government preserved Master Wu’s French Romanticism No matter before

and after the Handover, the curators from the Hong Kong Museum of Art plays an important role in organizing many solo exhibitions for Wu Guanzhong’s oil and ink paintings. This enables the international world to know about the unique art styles of Wu Guanzhong by putting aside the concern on the threats from the Beijing regime.

British-Hong Kong Government preserved Master Wu’s French Romanticism

That’s why, Wu Guanzhong fostered a strong sense of belonging to Hong Kong, a city with creative freedom that sheltered him to pursue his Sino-French painting style. Wu Guanzhong donated his final series of oil and ink paintings to the Hong Kong Museum of Art before his death in 2010 as an expression of deepest thanks to the Hong Kong Government.

Alex Fong’s dad as Wu Guanzhong’s trustworthy art manger Alex Fong’s dad is a

merchant in gallery business and art collections. His dad persists with a close friendship with Wu Keyu (吳可雨 ), who is Wu Guanzhong’s son. That’s why, Alex Fong’s dad tries his best to help Wu Keyu promote and sell Wu Guanzhong’s paintings.

Wu Keyu as the Guest-of-Honor During the last

solo exhibition of Wu Guanzhong’s art at Hong Kong Museum of Art before his death in 2010, Tsang Tak-sing (曾德成 ), Secretary for Home Affairs Bureau, presented a Certificate of Appreciation to Wu Keyu, for thanking his father’s painting donations to the Museum.

The art style of Wu Guanzhong Rural and ecological

episodes With the alternative

highlights of red, yellow, green and light-blue dots

Ink strokes: reflecting the “vibrancy of structural brushworks” (骨法用筆 ) from the Six Rules of Xie He (謝赫六法 )

The art style of Wu Guanzhong

Cursive flows of ink strokes: fabricating a vision called “vividness of spiritual essence” (氣韻生動 ) from the Six Rules of Xie He (謝赫六法 )

The art style of Wu Guanzhong

Good at portraying the stems of lotuses from the ponds: talking about the idea of integrity and his wish of persisting with a purified spirituality despite of growing up from the dirty mud (出淤泥而不染 )

The art style of Wu Guanzhong

Bold use of ink strokes while describing the architectures of the urban episodes: reflecting his desire for living with a sense of “childhoodness” despite of being regarded as “naïve” in expressing his aesthetic vision

The art style of Wu Guanzhong

Stressing the moisturized ink leisures (墨意 ) with infiltration effects, which helped better present a kind of“artistic conception” (意境 ): conveying his admiration to the spirit of “literati painting” (文人畫 ) since the Yuan Dynasty, which was initiated by Wang Meng (王蒙 ), Huang Gongwang (黃宮望 ), Wu Zhen (吳鎮 ) and Ni Zan (倪瓚 )

The art style of Wu Guanzhong

Sometimes making references on the courageous “pigment-splashing” effects of Jackson Pollock from the US: sought for an integration between Chinese-ink leisure and American Abstract Expressionism

The art style of Wu Guanzhong

Sometimes making references on the palette effects of Paul Czanne from the trend of Post-Impressionism: The cottages were fabricated by rectangular ink regiments

The art style of Wu Guanzhong Even for portraying

a realistic object, the corresponding background was decorated with a slight portion of cursive ink strokes and an alternative highlight of red, yellow, green, light-blue and purple dots.

The art style of Wu Guanzhong

Some of the pieces reflected his trust on random intuitions during his creative explorations, as he distributed diversified sketchy objects on a piece of xuanzhi paper in an illogical manner, which made the whole vision appear as similar as a fantasy or a daydreaming illusion.

The art style of Wu Guanzhong Master Wu

liked to travel around, including Hong Kong, to record the episodes of some inspiring sight-seeings by using his transformed “line-and-dot” ink styles in a sketchy manner.

The art style of Wu Guanzhong Sometimes,

he is also a fan of “Minimalism”, which is a trend initiated by Donald Judd.

The art style of Wu Guanzhong For nude-lady expression, Wu

Guanzhong was inspired by the directness of his master, Lin Fengmian (林風眠 ), in which there’s a harmonious integration among “gongbi” (工筆 ) refinements, Feminism, Minimalism, German Expressionism (particularly for the exaggerative distortion of human anatomy), and the moisturized ink leisures from the “Chinese Literati Painting” tradition.

Thank you very much!

Academic reference: “Hong Kong Visual Arts Yearbook 2010”, published by CUHK Department of Fine Arts