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Lot Essay
One of the pioneering artists of the Singapore-centred Nanyang movement, Liu Kang was born in Fujian Province in China in 1911 and taught art in Shanghai in the 1930s. In the formative years of his training as an artist, Liu Kang was taught by Chinese artist and art teacher, Liu Haisu. Under Liu's influence, Liu Kang became familiar with the works of French-based modern painters C?zanne, van Gogh and Matisse.
As with the other Nanyang artists, Liu Kang's formative role in the development of the Nanyang style that made a vernacular of the aesthetics of the school of Paris and traditional Chinese easel painting came about when he began to assimilate and paint local subjects in the Southeast Asian region. Liu Kang first came to Singapore in 1942 but it was not until 1952 that he, together with Chen Chong Swee, Chen Wen Hsi and Cheong Soo Pieng, made a trip to Bali in Indonesia where the artists' search of a new artistic language took coherent form in the foregrounding of particular Southeast Asian subjects in their paintings.
Like Cheong Soo Pieng in particular, Liu Kang's paintings of sights and scenes he observed on his travels became the core of his most recognizable Nanyang oeuvre. This season, two superlative works, Bandong (Lot 188) and View of the Yellow Mountains (Lot 189) exemplify different facets of Liu Kang's cultural and artistic influences.
Bandong is a rare to market striking work of Liu Kang showing two pairs of lovers in a landscape dominated by a stilted house. Painted in Liu Kang's 1950s prevailing style where, in an attempt to assimilate his painting with local visual cultures, he intentionally creates bold white outlines around the different painted elements. In Bandong and a number of other pictures from the 1950s period, Liu Kang tried to convey a little of the aesthetics of batik with its emphasis on the delineation of areas of colours to painting.
View of Yellow Mountains (Lot 189) is a work from one of Liu Kang's personally favourite series of works - his paintings of the Yellow Mountains. Having made numerous trips to Huangshan, Liu Kang has produced a prolific and outstanding body of works that highlight the majesty of the mountains with its breathtaking scenery, sunsets, peculiarly shaped granite peaks, Huangshan Pine trees, and views of the clouds from above. In the present lot, all of the most distinguishing attributes of his Huangshan oeuvre, including the signature blue mist of the scene are present.
As with the other Nanyang artists, Liu Kang's formative role in the development of the Nanyang style that made a vernacular of the aesthetics of the school of Paris and traditional Chinese easel painting came about when he began to assimilate and paint local subjects in the Southeast Asian region. Liu Kang first came to Singapore in 1942 but it was not until 1952 that he, together with Chen Chong Swee, Chen Wen Hsi and Cheong Soo Pieng, made a trip to Bali in Indonesia where the artists' search of a new artistic language took coherent form in the foregrounding of particular Southeast Asian subjects in their paintings.
Like Cheong Soo Pieng in particular, Liu Kang's paintings of sights and scenes he observed on his travels became the core of his most recognizable Nanyang oeuvre. This season, two superlative works, Bandong (Lot 188) and View of the Yellow Mountains (Lot 189) exemplify different facets of Liu Kang's cultural and artistic influences.
Bandong is a rare to market striking work of Liu Kang showing two pairs of lovers in a landscape dominated by a stilted house. Painted in Liu Kang's 1950s prevailing style where, in an attempt to assimilate his painting with local visual cultures, he intentionally creates bold white outlines around the different painted elements. In Bandong and a number of other pictures from the 1950s period, Liu Kang tried to convey a little of the aesthetics of batik with its emphasis on the delineation of areas of colours to painting.
View of Yellow Mountains (Lot 189) is a work from one of Liu Kang's personally favourite series of works - his paintings of the Yellow Mountains. Having made numerous trips to Huangshan, Liu Kang has produced a prolific and outstanding body of works that highlight the majesty of the mountains with its breathtaking scenery, sunsets, peculiarly shaped granite peaks, Huangshan Pine trees, and views of the clouds from above. In the present lot, all of the most distinguishing attributes of his Huangshan oeuvre, including the signature blue mist of the scene are present.