Abstraction

John Way was a pioneer of Chinese abstract art, one of the early Chinese artists who began exploring the world of abstraction. Way was born in Shanghai in 1921, at a time when the vogue for abstraction was sweeping through the artistic circles of Europe; coming from a literary family, his study of calligraphy under Li Zhongqian planted the seeds for his later fusion of Chinese calligraphy with Western avant-garde styles. He moved to Hong Kong in 1949 to escape the civil war, and in 1956 he and his wife settled in Boston, where he entered the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and studied abstract techniques with Richard Filipowski. In 1965 his work was shown in the joint exhibition Painting Without a Brush at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, alongside works by Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Hans Hartung, and Paul Klee, bringing broad affirmation of his status in the US and European art world. A period of living in France in 1975 brought even greater stylistic maturity, as he continued creative work while delving into studies of technique and art theory and participating in international exhibitions.

The large-scale diptych Abstraction (Lot 402) from 2001 illustrates the unique spatial feel of John Way's work. Within its collagelike composition of regularly repeating abstract figures, Way also ingeniously takes advantage of the aged and weathered textures in the deep tones of his oils, enhancing the sense of visual weight and pulsation, while still retaining the sense of speed and the spontaneous calligraphic feel of his brushwork. The result is intense, deeply felt rhythmic movement in an ideal expression of the union of traditional calligraphy and abstraction that formed the unique individual style of John Way.