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Lot Essay
Born in the Chinese province of Guangzhou in 1913, Lee migrated to Singapore at the age of three, spending the formative part of his adult life in Indonesia before returning to Singapore in his retirement years. Throughout his artistic career, Lee Man Fong remained firmly rooted to his cultural identity as an ethnic Chinese artist, schooled in Western art and living in the unique and culturally diverse region of Southeast Asia.
Exposed to an amalgamation of cultural ideologies, techniques and mediums, Lee Man Fong’s oeuvre is undoubtedly distinctive having assimilated and extracted features from each practice as he saw fit. These external influences are well illustrated in the artist’s medium, depiction of space, and his selection of subject matter. Nevertheless, one can see a predominant expression of Chinese aesthetics through the confident delicacy of his lines, his preference for the vertical scroll format (despite converting this to the hardy medium of masonite board) and his application of muted and harmonious colours. His aptitude in both eastern and western techniques demonstrates that there is a deliberate decision in creating his unique artistic identity.
Lee Man Fong regarded Xu Bei Hong, one of the pioneering artists of Chinese oil painting who was of greater seniority and more established as an artist, to be his mentor, and constantly sought his advice. Like Xu Bei Hong, Lee Man Fong was skilled in both oil and ink, and also favoured a depiction of animals and landscapes in his art. Xu Bei Hong is noted for his forceful rendition of horses and his artistic influence is felt most clearly in Lee Man Fong’s choice of subject in Three Horses. Furthermore, the play of color intensity in Three Horses bears similar resemblance of Xu Bei Hong’s artistry. However, the difference in medium gives Lee Man Fong the freedom to handle the paint differently. While Xu Bei Hong’s rendition of his energetic and abrupt depiction of the horse is significantly affected by the quick immersion of the ink into the paper, the utilization of oil on board allows Lee Man Fong to gently construct a demure and playful interpretation of his horses.
Three Horses is a perfect testament of Lee Man Fong’s signature painterly skill. Like many of his oil on board works, Lee Man Fong adorned the composition of Three Horses with the uneven dispersion of foliage framing the lower edge of the painting, often to express a lyrical structure reminiscent of traditional Chinese ink paintings and calligraphy complete with his Chinese inscription balancing the composition of the painting. Unlike the Dutch impressionists, Lee Man Fong did not demand strict adherence to reality in his works which distinguished by his animated portrayal of his subject, in this case, the three horses, and also the isolation of the horses against the plain background emphasizes the prominence of the horses while simultaneously creating rhythm of energy to the painting and a remote feeling to the scene – making it one of the most romantic and intimate rendition of Horse-themed painting that he has ever produced while leaving the entire image in undisturbed harmony.
With delicate airy lines, Lee Man Fong elegantly framed the dynamic horse figures. The application of paint onto the board control the most saturated and darkest color nuance. Slowly working his way through, his masterful brushwork gracefully create the horse figure, creating a gradation of shade from dark to light, and thus providing a sense of volume to the horses portrayed in the painting. The play of saturation within the figure again recalls the poetic charm of the Chinese ink paintings, whereas the fluid brushwork evokes the expressiveness of the Dutch brand of Impressionists style, in which he was exposed to when he completed a painting course in the Netherlands.
Admiring Lee Man Fong, fellow artists Siew Hock Meng stated, “The oriental style of oil painting created by Mr. Lee Man Fong is definitely a great artistic bridge. Though he is not a ‘formalist,’ he created a unique style never seen before. He is also not a realist painter, yet the artistic conception in his works evokes a certain type of oriental wisdom, teaching people to adapt to imperfections of life”
Three Horses is a testament of Lee Man Fong’s excellent painterly skill on both eastern and western aesthetics. Lee Man Fong’s accomplishment in fusing the eastern and the western elements through his masterpieces had made him to be a progressive painter amongst his contemporaries in conceptualizing oil paintings in a Chinese style or what has been termed by a number of critics as Eastern style oil painting.
Exposed to an amalgamation of cultural ideologies, techniques and mediums, Lee Man Fong’s oeuvre is undoubtedly distinctive having assimilated and extracted features from each practice as he saw fit. These external influences are well illustrated in the artist’s medium, depiction of space, and his selection of subject matter. Nevertheless, one can see a predominant expression of Chinese aesthetics through the confident delicacy of his lines, his preference for the vertical scroll format (despite converting this to the hardy medium of masonite board) and his application of muted and harmonious colours. His aptitude in both eastern and western techniques demonstrates that there is a deliberate decision in creating his unique artistic identity.
Lee Man Fong regarded Xu Bei Hong, one of the pioneering artists of Chinese oil painting who was of greater seniority and more established as an artist, to be his mentor, and constantly sought his advice. Like Xu Bei Hong, Lee Man Fong was skilled in both oil and ink, and also favoured a depiction of animals and landscapes in his art. Xu Bei Hong is noted for his forceful rendition of horses and his artistic influence is felt most clearly in Lee Man Fong’s choice of subject in Three Horses. Furthermore, the play of color intensity in Three Horses bears similar resemblance of Xu Bei Hong’s artistry. However, the difference in medium gives Lee Man Fong the freedom to handle the paint differently. While Xu Bei Hong’s rendition of his energetic and abrupt depiction of the horse is significantly affected by the quick immersion of the ink into the paper, the utilization of oil on board allows Lee Man Fong to gently construct a demure and playful interpretation of his horses.
Three Horses is a perfect testament of Lee Man Fong’s signature painterly skill. Like many of his oil on board works, Lee Man Fong adorned the composition of Three Horses with the uneven dispersion of foliage framing the lower edge of the painting, often to express a lyrical structure reminiscent of traditional Chinese ink paintings and calligraphy complete with his Chinese inscription balancing the composition of the painting. Unlike the Dutch impressionists, Lee Man Fong did not demand strict adherence to reality in his works which distinguished by his animated portrayal of his subject, in this case, the three horses, and also the isolation of the horses against the plain background emphasizes the prominence of the horses while simultaneously creating rhythm of energy to the painting and a remote feeling to the scene – making it one of the most romantic and intimate rendition of Horse-themed painting that he has ever produced while leaving the entire image in undisturbed harmony.
With delicate airy lines, Lee Man Fong elegantly framed the dynamic horse figures. The application of paint onto the board control the most saturated and darkest color nuance. Slowly working his way through, his masterful brushwork gracefully create the horse figure, creating a gradation of shade from dark to light, and thus providing a sense of volume to the horses portrayed in the painting. The play of saturation within the figure again recalls the poetic charm of the Chinese ink paintings, whereas the fluid brushwork evokes the expressiveness of the Dutch brand of Impressionists style, in which he was exposed to when he completed a painting course in the Netherlands.
Admiring Lee Man Fong, fellow artists Siew Hock Meng stated, “The oriental style of oil painting created by Mr. Lee Man Fong is definitely a great artistic bridge. Though he is not a ‘formalist,’ he created a unique style never seen before. He is also not a realist painter, yet the artistic conception in his works evokes a certain type of oriental wisdom, teaching people to adapt to imperfections of life”
Three Horses is a testament of Lee Man Fong’s excellent painterly skill on both eastern and western aesthetics. Lee Man Fong’s accomplishment in fusing the eastern and the western elements through his masterpieces had made him to be a progressive painter amongst his contemporaries in conceptualizing oil paintings in a Chinese style or what has been termed by a number of critics as Eastern style oil painting.