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FROM AN IMPORTANT ASIAN COLLECTION (LOTS 1302-1318)XU BEIHONG AND HIS FRIENDS IN ASIA : WORKS BY XU BEIHONG FROM AN IMPORTANT ASIAN COLLECTION By Professor Xu QingpingIn 1939 my father Xu Beihong left Guilin for Nanyang to raise funds for anti-Sino Japanese War activities. Over the next few years, he created over a thousand paintings and organized 36 selling exhibitions through which he donated all the proceeds to assist the orphans of deceased soldiers and displaced refugees. It is also during this period that Xu Beihong worked with both traditional Chinese ink and western oil media to create the masterpiece The Foolish Old Man Removes the Mountains that praised the unfailing spirit of the Chinese people. Xu believed that an artist should “use his ability to contribute to one’s country and fulfil one’s responsibility as a citizen.” We are extremely fortunate to see this display of Xu’s works, it is as if the patriotic artist relives in front of our eyes. Xu Beihong is renowned for his depiction of animals for they are true to their spirits. Under his brush, each animal demonstrates its unique temperament - the cow honest and down-to-earth, the horse shrewd and brave, the cat agile and watchful, and the rooster loyal and alert. Chinese literati painting prides itself in expressing sentiment through symbolism. Painters depict the “three friends” - pine tree, bamboo and plum blossoms to manifest their perseverance for they thrive in the harshness of winter. They paint a large rock or a strong branch to symbolise a long-lived spirit. However, if an artist blindly copies the symbols without truly understanding the underlying meaning, then his work merely emanates a constructed elegance but is in fact a mockery to one’s creativity. Xu Beihong fused together the Chinese philosophical concepts of morality (de) and benevolence (ren) as well as western teaching of the pursuit of universal truth and progress. His work sees a rich imagination that is characteristic of Romanticism. As such, Xu successfully transformed the sentiments and hidden meanings in Chinese poetry into metaphors personified in the protagonists of the paintings. Before the arrival of the Japanese army, Xu Beihong left Singapore to return to China on a ferry via Myanmar. Eighty years later, we are pleased to see that a large body of work that Xu created in his Southeast Asia journey has been kept intact under one single collection, allowing us to get a glimpse of Xu Beihong as an artist in that period, and the enduring greatness of his art. Note: The introductory notes in this collection were written by Professor Xu Qingping.

XU BEIHONG (1895-1953)

Portrait of Mrs Lu Yun Tao (small draft)

Details

XU BEIHONG (1895-1953)
Portrait of Mrs Lu Yun Tao (small draft)
Scroll, mounted on linen and framed, oil on canvas
38.5 x 26.5 cm. (15 1/8 x 10 3/8 in.)
Note: This painting will be featured in the upcoming book Complete Works by Xu Beihong: Oil Paintings, edited by Fan Di’an and Xu Qingping, to be published by China Youth Publishing Group.
Loke Wan Tho is an important film producer, ornithologist and photographer in Singapore and Southeast Asia. The woman in the painting is Mr. Loke’s first wife, Christina Lee.

Literature

Huang Xiao and Xu Ji ed., Spring Blossoms – Xu Beihong in Southeast Asia (1939-1942), Hunan Fine Arts Publishing House, Changsha, March 2019, p.188.

Exhibited

Changsha, M. L. Art Museum, Spring Blossoms – Xu Beihong in Southeast Asia (1939-1942), 27 April – 15 June 2019.

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Lot Essay

Xu Beihong’s oil paintings from his sojourn in Southeast Asia are extremely important amongst his works in the medium, their popularity opened a commercial market for him in the region.
According to historical archives and photographs, Xu Beihong painted Portrait of Mrs Lu Yun Tao in his studio in Jiang Xia Tang in Singapore in 1939. Xu created two versions of this painting - one is a live sketch (Lot 1302), and the other is a later work (collection of Xu Beihong Memorial Museum, Beijing); the latter is widely known as one of his most representative portraits. In this dynamic yet elegant work, Xu painted a fascinating countenance, and applied relaxed brushwork to depict the textures of skin, clothes and chair. The bright and varied colours used in the subject’s face highlight the carefree and enthusiastic personality that Xu observed in the young lady. Xu had instructed Mrs Lu to turn her face away slightly, away from the viewer’s direction, so as to avoid dull symmetry. To illustrate the unique subtlety of Asian beauty, Xu paid special attention to Mrs Lu’s hairstyle and facial features, emphasising on the gap between her brows as well as the space between her nose and her upper lip.
Xu Beihong instilled Eastern aesthetics into Western oil paintings by reducing the contrast between black and white and harmonizing the complex use of colours through careful application of cold and warm hues. Portrait of Mrs Lu Yun Tao is thus far from a Western realist portrait as it is endowed with imageries specific to Chinese painting, in which Xu alluded to reality while shifting the viewers from their mundane existence.

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