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Lot Essay
A Hill City is one of Wu Guanzhong’s rare masterpieces in ink and colour from the seventies. The entire painting is over four feet long, with a mixture of dots, lines, and surface, and almost no blank spaces, demonstrating Wu Guanzhong’s enthusiasm for the transition from oil to ink painting in the late seventies. According to the published records, the painting is titled “A Hill City,” possibly depicting the area around Chongqing or Sichuan of southwest China.
The composition is different from the flattened perspective of traditional landscapes. Starting from the foot of the mountain, the body of hills rises upwards along with the tall trees. The mighty mountains are dotted with the colours of the people living in the mid-levels so that it is not impermeable. Though the mountain is steep, a narrow path of stairs curves through the mass to lead up to the clouds, giving a sense of dynamism in the otherwise vertical structure. At the top of the hill is the “Hill City,” where modern buildings are stacked and arranged, becoming one of the focal points of the painting.
The work was created at the end of the seventies when a decade of political turmoil ended, and the art world welcomed a breath of freedom. Wu used his art and brush to express and vent the years of frustration. The collector and his wife recalled that they had first seen this work in an exhibition at the National Art Museum of China between late 1977 and early 1978 and that it was one of the first works of art at the time that did not depict themes of “workers, peasants, and soldiers.” Shortly after its completion, A Hill City was exhibited at Shenzhen Exhibition Hall’s Exhibition of Beijing Rong Bao Zhai Woodblock Prints, Calligraphy, and Paintings in Hong Kong in 1977, and was well-received by the Hong Kong audience, with tens of thousands of visitors attending the event. A photo of the painting was later published in the October 1977 issue of Ming Pao Monthly. This was also the first time Wu Guanzhong’s name and work appeared in a Hong Kong publication. The exhibition of this painting and its publication in a Hong Kong magazine were of great significance as they marked a turning point in Wu’s creative career, where he came under the international spotlight for the first time in the beginning of a new era in society.
The composition is different from the flattened perspective of traditional landscapes. Starting from the foot of the mountain, the body of hills rises upwards along with the tall trees. The mighty mountains are dotted with the colours of the people living in the mid-levels so that it is not impermeable. Though the mountain is steep, a narrow path of stairs curves through the mass to lead up to the clouds, giving a sense of dynamism in the otherwise vertical structure. At the top of the hill is the “Hill City,” where modern buildings are stacked and arranged, becoming one of the focal points of the painting.
The work was created at the end of the seventies when a decade of political turmoil ended, and the art world welcomed a breath of freedom. Wu used his art and brush to express and vent the years of frustration. The collector and his wife recalled that they had first seen this work in an exhibition at the National Art Museum of China between late 1977 and early 1978 and that it was one of the first works of art at the time that did not depict themes of “workers, peasants, and soldiers.” Shortly after its completion, A Hill City was exhibited at Shenzhen Exhibition Hall’s Exhibition of Beijing Rong Bao Zhai Woodblock Prints, Calligraphy, and Paintings in Hong Kong in 1977, and was well-received by the Hong Kong audience, with tens of thousands of visitors attending the event. A photo of the painting was later published in the October 1977 issue of Ming Pao Monthly. This was also the first time Wu Guanzhong’s name and work appeared in a Hong Kong publication. The exhibition of this painting and its publication in a Hong Kong magazine were of great significance as they marked a turning point in Wu’s creative career, where he came under the international spotlight for the first time in the beginning of a new era in society.