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LOTS 1259-1268
FROM THE PRIVATE COLLECTION OF ROBERT HATFIELD ELLSWORTH
Shi Lu was born Feng Yaheng in Sichuan province in 1919, to a family of wealthy, educated landowners. He studied traditional Chinese painting at the Oriental Art College in Chengdu. In 1939 he journeyed to Yan'an to join forces with the Communist Party and changed his name to Shi Lu, in homage to his two favorite artists, the painter Shitao (1642-1707) and the author Lu Xun (1881-1936). Eventually he settled in Xi'an, where he painted and taught. Shi Lu's final decades were extremely difficult ones: he was persecuted during the Cultural Revolution, suffered a mental breakdown, and died of cancer in 1982.
New York collector and dealer Robert H. Ellsworth recognized and became a passionate advocate of Shi Lu's work. Beginning with his first purchase in the late 1970s, Mr. Ellsworth assembled one of the world's largest and most comprehensive collection of Shi Lu's paintings and calligraphy. While Mr. Ellsworth never met Shi Lu, he acquired most of his collection from a close friend of the artist.
The Ellsworth collection reveals the range of themes and artistic interests explored by Shi Lu. In his figure paintings, the artist sought to communicate the spirit of his subject by expressing, in just a few brushstrokes, their most salient emotions. Shi Lu enlivens his compositions with bright colours to experiment with such juxtapositions as dark and light, sharp angles and rounded washes, employs energetic, staccato brushstrokes for which his style was best known, incorporating his practice of pulling the elements of his composition, close to the surface, heightening the viewer's sense of engagement and immediacy.
SHI LU (1919-1982)
Running Script Calligraphy
Details
SHI LU (1919-1982)
Running Script Calligraphy
Inscribed and signed, with two painted seals of the artist
Dated spring, xinhai year (1971)
Dedicated to Jianjun (Chen Jianjun)
One collector's seal of R.H. Ellsworth
Further inscribed and signed by the artist
Scroll, mounted and framed, ink on paper
175.2 x 92.5 cm. (69 x 36 3/8 in.)
20th Century
Running Script Calligraphy
Inscribed and signed, with two painted seals of the artist
Dated spring, xinhai year (1971)
Dedicated to Jianjun (Chen Jianjun)
One collector's seal of R.H. Ellsworth
Further inscribed and signed by the artist
Scroll, mounted and framed, ink on paper
175.2 x 92.5 cm. (69 x 36 3/8 in.)
20th Century
Literature
The Beauty of Art: Paintings and Calligraphy by Shi Lu from the Private Collection of Robert Hatfield Ellsworth, Christie's New York, 2011, p.93.
Exhibited
Christie's New York, The Beauty of Art: Paintings and Calligraphy by Shi Lu from the Private Collection of Robert Hatfield Ellsworth, 15-31 March 2011.
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