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Lot Essay
'This is why ever since the 1970s, I have focused all my energy on imparting depth to every painting I create, because without depth, a painting is without life. If an artist produces works with no profound meanings, then these works will only be short-lived and will not survive the test of time. I've spent the past so many years working on it.' - Chu Teh-Chun
'The most authentic painting comes from memory,' said Pierre Cabanne, art critic and long-time friend of Chu Tehchun. The story of a painting is inseparably connected to the artist's personal experience—upbringing, family background, education, or even a minute detail in life, can each have an enormous impact on the artist's creation. This auction presents a total of six Chu's oil paintings and works on paper, spanning his creative period from the 70s up to the 90s. Some draw inspirations from the artist's life and travel experiences, others are creations influenced by his upbringing. The eclectic selection gives viewers a chronological glimpse of Chu's works in evolution.
The Use Of Light – An Eye Opening Visit At The Retrospective Exhibition Commemorating The 300-Year Anniversary Of Rembrandt's Death
In 1970, Chu Teh-chun hopped on a train to Amsterdam and visited a retrospective exhibition commemorating the 300-year anniversary of the death of the Dutch master painter Rembrandt. The trip was an eye opening experience for Chu, especially in seeing the maestro's use of light. In the same year, he created a gouache painting Untitled (Lot 355), drawing on the powdery and opaque properties to achieve the effects of a soft and matte look. Contrasting colours—blue, yellow, orange—breeze in the light grey backdrop, reminiscent of rays of light penetrating the entropic chaosmos. Also painted in the seventies, Le 4 Avril 1975 (On 4 April 1975) (Lot 353) is a rare piece created by Chu, bursting with rhythm and transmittance, unique in the colour schemes and the pulsing brush strokes. At a closer scrutiny, beside the relatively larger patches of sepia, orange and yellow, colours of bright green, silvery white and dark purple make their presence in dots, smears and brush-like streaks in the centre, akin to light sources shaping a three-dimensional space. The yin and yang, the light and shadow, erupt onto the canvas, each playing a beat in a concerted symphony.
Chu's "Red Complex" Inspired By Chinese Poet Wang Anshi's Ode Of Pomegranate
Chu began inserting symbolic light sources in his abstract paintings after the 1970s— colour themes morphed into light sources through the bending of light, empowering light to pervade the painting to simultaneously form the spatial composition. This exploration of colour and light source reached a new height in his 1979 creation Red Composition (Lot 356).
Chu's consummate control of the fluidity of oil paint and the intensity of brush strokes allowed him to make large sweeps in producing different gradients and shades of red, with dark red and crimson in the outer rim slowly advancing toward the centre to join bright garnet red and flaming red. Chu openly noted that his "red complex" is influenced by traditional Chinese culture, saying: 'The so-called red rain in Chinese refers to falling blossoms. There’s a line in a Chinese poem that goes "a single red in a sea of green". Instead of using a single red, I opted for a profusion of red.
A Very Rare Large-Scale Work On Paper–Creative Improvisation Of Chinese Tradition
Untitled (Lot 354) is a very unique and rare work created by Chu in his artistic career. In 1988, Chu was invited alongside other prominent cultural figures, including Ladislas Kijno, Gilles Plazy, and Claude Bertrand, to grace the piano recital of Alain Kremski (Fig. 3) and the elocution of a text about China by Victor Segalen. Chu created six improvised works on the spot during three performances of the show, one was destroyed by the artist, three remain in the artist’s collection and two in private hands, including Untitled featured in this auction. Since it was considered a "performance", the artist needed to have the translucent tracing paper mounted vertically to face the onlooking audience, who could observe the entire creation process. The colourful ink drops slowly drip downward, forming stave-like patterns as if echoing the piano tunes. This large vertical painting stretches some 2.7 meters long, thus requiring the artist to exert himself with full-range body movements and emotions, and make use of the fluidity of the inks to move in sync with him, letting the colours trickle down to form dots, lines, and planes. The paint brush is controlled by the artist's emotions at that particular moment, much like Wang Xia, a Chinese painter active in the eighth century, who would get inebriated every time before working on a painting and let his body and mind take over his paint brush.(3) This improvisation and randomness bring to mind the drip-style paintings of Jackson Pollock and the action painting of French abstract artist Georges Mathieu (Fig. 4).
"We can 'read' his gestures with the brush as mountains or clouds, as waves, as the cosmic swirl of Chaos at the beginning of the world,- visionary forms, forever appearing and dissolving before our eyes. Like the dragons in a Chan painting by the Song Dynasty master Chen Rong, Chu's images occupy some mysterious realm between form and the formless, the temporal and the eternal" - Michael Sullivan
Landscape Outside Abstraction—Nourished By Chinese Cultural Background
Eminent art critic Michael Sullivan once asked Chu Tehchun an interesting question in the 80s: 'Are your works considered Chinese paintings? ' Chu replied that Chinese ethos has always been 'unintentionally and natural l y present' in my creation process. Wu Guanzhong, one of the greatest contemporary Chinese painters, once visited Chu in 1982 and wrote that he could really feel the dynamic flow of Chinese landscape painting in Chu's oeuvres. Untitled (Lot 357) created in the 1990s is an apt presentation of the artist’s abstract exploration of the magnificent landscapes in China. Laying a dark-screen-like background with deep heavy tonality, Chu wields the brush with gusto to create dense yet flowing lines, accompanied by the diffusing of inkin motion. Though characterized as an abstract aesthetic, the composition associated with Chinese landscape painting—towering, layered mountains in an interlocking space of voids and solids—is secretly hidden in Chu's work. The bravado with which he commands the oil paint brush open up the possibility of an interplay between Chinese ink wash and Western creative mediums.
Brushing Up On Calligraphy Using Meat Wrapping Paper In France
In 1966, Chu discovered that the wrapping paper used in butcher shops in France was thin and quite absorbent, which could serve as an alternative to xuan paper that was difficult to come by in France. He instantly picked up his calligraphy practice; he would work on his oil paintings in the daytime, and when the lighting became different after sunset, he would then write calligraphy. The artist began learning calligraphy at a young age and had accumulated years of solid practice, starting with the strict and precise regular script before moving on to cursive script charged with subjective undertones. Gazing to the South (Lot 358) is created with wild, dexterous lines, in which the strokes of the characters 中 (in), 吹 (blow), and 斷 (break) are deliberately elongated to enhance the visual rhythm and tempo. This wild cursive calligraphy articulates the artist's inner feelings. As viewers read between the lines, they are engulfed by the grieving hatred of the lyric poet Li Yu, the last ruler of the Southern Tang, after being captured and imprisoned by the succeeding Song Dynasty.
'The most authentic painting comes from memory,' said Pierre Cabanne, art critic and long-time friend of Chu Tehchun. The story of a painting is inseparably connected to the artist's personal experience—upbringing, family background, education, or even a minute detail in life, can each have an enormous impact on the artist's creation. This auction presents a total of six Chu's oil paintings and works on paper, spanning his creative period from the 70s up to the 90s. Some draw inspirations from the artist's life and travel experiences, others are creations influenced by his upbringing. The eclectic selection gives viewers a chronological glimpse of Chu's works in evolution.
The Use Of Light – An Eye Opening Visit At The Retrospective Exhibition Commemorating The 300-Year Anniversary Of Rembrandt's Death
In 1970, Chu Teh-chun hopped on a train to Amsterdam and visited a retrospective exhibition commemorating the 300-year anniversary of the death of the Dutch master painter Rembrandt. The trip was an eye opening experience for Chu, especially in seeing the maestro's use of light. In the same year, he created a gouache painting Untitled (Lot 355), drawing on the powdery and opaque properties to achieve the effects of a soft and matte look. Contrasting colours—blue, yellow, orange—breeze in the light grey backdrop, reminiscent of rays of light penetrating the entropic chaosmos. Also painted in the seventies, Le 4 Avril 1975 (On 4 April 1975) (Lot 353) is a rare piece created by Chu, bursting with rhythm and transmittance, unique in the colour schemes and the pulsing brush strokes. At a closer scrutiny, beside the relatively larger patches of sepia, orange and yellow, colours of bright green, silvery white and dark purple make their presence in dots, smears and brush-like streaks in the centre, akin to light sources shaping a three-dimensional space. The yin and yang, the light and shadow, erupt onto the canvas, each playing a beat in a concerted symphony.
Chu's "Red Complex" Inspired By Chinese Poet Wang Anshi's Ode Of Pomegranate
Chu began inserting symbolic light sources in his abstract paintings after the 1970s— colour themes morphed into light sources through the bending of light, empowering light to pervade the painting to simultaneously form the spatial composition. This exploration of colour and light source reached a new height in his 1979 creation Red Composition (Lot 356).
Chu's consummate control of the fluidity of oil paint and the intensity of brush strokes allowed him to make large sweeps in producing different gradients and shades of red, with dark red and crimson in the outer rim slowly advancing toward the centre to join bright garnet red and flaming red. Chu openly noted that his "red complex" is influenced by traditional Chinese culture, saying: 'The so-called red rain in Chinese refers to falling blossoms. There’s a line in a Chinese poem that goes "a single red in a sea of green". Instead of using a single red, I opted for a profusion of red.
A Very Rare Large-Scale Work On Paper–Creative Improvisation Of Chinese Tradition
Untitled (Lot 354) is a very unique and rare work created by Chu in his artistic career. In 1988, Chu was invited alongside other prominent cultural figures, including Ladislas Kijno, Gilles Plazy, and Claude Bertrand, to grace the piano recital of Alain Kremski (Fig. 3) and the elocution of a text about China by Victor Segalen. Chu created six improvised works on the spot during three performances of the show, one was destroyed by the artist, three remain in the artist’s collection and two in private hands, including Untitled featured in this auction. Since it was considered a "performance", the artist needed to have the translucent tracing paper mounted vertically to face the onlooking audience, who could observe the entire creation process. The colourful ink drops slowly drip downward, forming stave-like patterns as if echoing the piano tunes. This large vertical painting stretches some 2.7 meters long, thus requiring the artist to exert himself with full-range body movements and emotions, and make use of the fluidity of the inks to move in sync with him, letting the colours trickle down to form dots, lines, and planes. The paint brush is controlled by the artist's emotions at that particular moment, much like Wang Xia, a Chinese painter active in the eighth century, who would get inebriated every time before working on a painting and let his body and mind take over his paint brush.(3) This improvisation and randomness bring to mind the drip-style paintings of Jackson Pollock and the action painting of French abstract artist Georges Mathieu (Fig. 4).
"We can 'read' his gestures with the brush as mountains or clouds, as waves, as the cosmic swirl of Chaos at the beginning of the world,- visionary forms, forever appearing and dissolving before our eyes. Like the dragons in a Chan painting by the Song Dynasty master Chen Rong, Chu's images occupy some mysterious realm between form and the formless, the temporal and the eternal" - Michael Sullivan
Landscape Outside Abstraction—Nourished By Chinese Cultural Background
Eminent art critic Michael Sullivan once asked Chu Tehchun an interesting question in the 80s: 'Are your works considered Chinese paintings? ' Chu replied that Chinese ethos has always been 'unintentionally and natural l y present' in my creation process. Wu Guanzhong, one of the greatest contemporary Chinese painters, once visited Chu in 1982 and wrote that he could really feel the dynamic flow of Chinese landscape painting in Chu's oeuvres. Untitled (Lot 357) created in the 1990s is an apt presentation of the artist’s abstract exploration of the magnificent landscapes in China. Laying a dark-screen-like background with deep heavy tonality, Chu wields the brush with gusto to create dense yet flowing lines, accompanied by the diffusing of inkin motion. Though characterized as an abstract aesthetic, the composition associated with Chinese landscape painting—towering, layered mountains in an interlocking space of voids and solids—is secretly hidden in Chu's work. The bravado with which he commands the oil paint brush open up the possibility of an interplay between Chinese ink wash and Western creative mediums.
Brushing Up On Calligraphy Using Meat Wrapping Paper In France
In 1966, Chu discovered that the wrapping paper used in butcher shops in France was thin and quite absorbent, which could serve as an alternative to xuan paper that was difficult to come by in France. He instantly picked up his calligraphy practice; he would work on his oil paintings in the daytime, and when the lighting became different after sunset, he would then write calligraphy. The artist began learning calligraphy at a young age and had accumulated years of solid practice, starting with the strict and precise regular script before moving on to cursive script charged with subjective undertones. Gazing to the South (Lot 358) is created with wild, dexterous lines, in which the strokes of the characters 中 (in), 吹 (blow), and 斷 (break) are deliberately elongated to enhance the visual rhythm and tempo. This wild cursive calligraphy articulates the artist's inner feelings. As viewers read between the lines, they are engulfed by the grieving hatred of the lyric poet Li Yu, the last ruler of the Southern Tang, after being captured and imprisoned by the succeeding Song Dynasty.