Sotheby's Achieves US$4,680,000 for Sanyu's Masterpiece

Sanyu (Chang Yu) 1901-1966, Lotus et Poissons Rouges (Lotus and Red Fish), detail. photo courtesy Sotheby"s

HONG KONG.- Today at Sotheby’s Hong Kong 20th Century Chinese Art Autumn Sale 2009, Sanyu’s monumental Lotus et Poissons Rouges commanded HK$36,500,000/ US$4,680,000, selling to a Chinese buyer over the telephone after heated competition with five other bidders from across Asia (est. HK$15-25 million/ US$1,940,000-3,230,000).

Sotheby’s achieved the second highest auction price for Sanyu as well as an auction record for a landscape painting by the artist for this rare masterpiece, which has been unseen by the public for over half a century.

Zao Wou-ki’s 7.4.61 was sold for HK$15,780,000/ US$2,023,077 against an estimate of HK$8-12 million/ US$1-1.5 million. After an intense bidding battle between at least three bidders, this significant work was eventually sold to an anonymous bidder in the room.

Lily Lee, Sotheby’s Head of 20th Century Chinese Art Department said, “We were pleased with the results we achieved today, particularly for the masterworks by Sanyu and Zao Wu-ki. We recognized Lotus et Poissons Rouges immediately as a work of exceptional importance, carefully cultivating top collectors through our pre-sale efforts to result in the atmosphere that created the strong price achieved today. This demonstrates once again that collectors are willing to pay premium prices for noble, seminal works that are fresh to the market. We are honored to have been entrusted to sell such extraordinary paintings, and we look forward to offering more quality, rare works with great provenance to the market.”  

Sanyu (Chang Yu) 1901-1966, Lotus et Poissons Rouges (Lotus and Red Fish) Est. 15,000,000—25,000,000 HKD. Sold 36,500,000 HKD. photo courtesy Sotheby"s

oil on masonite; mounted in the artist's original frame; signed in Chinese and English (Lower Right); executed circa 1955.

PROVENANCE: Acquired directly from the artist by the previous owner

EXHIBITED: Salon des Indépendants, Grand Palais, Paris, 1956

LITERATURE AND REFERENCES: Catalogue du Salon des Indépendants, Grand Palais, Paris, 1956, catalogue entry no. 3224

NOTE: In 1961, the Musee Cernuschi in Paris held an exhibition of Zhang Daqian's paintings, including the masterpieces Lotus and Giant Lotus. Zhang, who had met Sanyu during his first trip to Paris in 1956, asked him to design the exhibition catalogue. The artists, two years apart in age, both natives of Sichuan and both innovative in their artistic approach, one adhering to traditional brush and ink, the other adopting Western oil on canvas, evidently felt a mutual affinity. Zhang expressed his high regard for Sanyu to Wang Zhiyi, the photographer who documented the painting of Giant Lotus:

"Your photographs have been acclaimed by the famed Chinese artist living in Paris, Chang Yu (Sanyu). He was one of the earliest Chinese Western-style artists to study in Paris and has been regarded as 'the Chinese Matisse." He is much more established and better known than Zao Wouki. It's just that he has an odd personality. He was completely in charge of the design and printing of the catalogue for the Giant Lotus. He praised your photographs for capturing the spirit of the entire process of the painting of Giant Lotus and therefore included all of them in the catalogue. Chang Yu rarely praises others' works. You should feel honored." [1]

Although the two artists had met only a few years before, Sanyu had to have known of Zhang much earlier, because of the latter's great repute in China and abroad as an artist of unparalleled talent and scope. Not only was it likely that Sanyu had seen Zhang's earlier lotus painting at a 1933 exhibition of Chinese paintings at the Musee du Jeu de Paume in Paris, there is every reason to believe that he also had the opportunity to see photographs of Lotus completed in 1945.

Sanyu himself used the lotus as subject in several of his paintings. In the 1930s and 1940s examples include still lifes of lotus arranged in vases, as well as growing from jardinières. [2] By the 1950s and into the early 1960s, he began to explore and develop landscape paintings, of which there are only four depicting lotus. While his still lifes characteristically capture serenity, simplicity and often loneliness, much in the Chinese literati tradition, his landscape paintings, executed towards the end of his life, depict the subjects, frequently animals, shrinking in their significance and surrendering to the encompassing vastness and emptiness. Indeed, the longing and loneliness succumb to hopelessness, mirroring his own life story.

In the four landscape paintings in which the lotus appears as subject, Sanyu continues to evoke his Chinese roots and cultural ethos; however he departs from his usual Western spatial compositions and turns to the formalism of traditional Chinese landscapes. Given his interaction with Zhang and their mutual regard, one is compelled to view these divergent works as a result of their shared dialogue, if not verbal, at least in artistic expression. Together with Bamboo [3], these lotus paintings are the only works in Sanyu's oeuvre that show a direct link to Chinese idioms. The construction and rendition of Lotus et Poissons Rouges can be referenced to Zhang's lotus paintings, with Sanyu's interpretation distilled and simplified, expressive of his minimalist sensibility. Of greater significance, however, is how in the midst this period of despairing landscapes Sanyu was able to rediscover a sense of dignity and pride. Far from hopeless, his lotus exude life, the long, thin stems proudly bearing the large and lush leaves and blossoms with fish in abundance swimming about. These lotus in landscape differ in mood and temperament from his earlier lotus paintings and from his landscapes of the same period. It is as if he rediscovered the symbolic ideals of lotus so deeply rooted in his Chinese tradition, that of strength and purity, of aspiring to the highest ideals and having the flexibility, as in the bent lotus stem, of overcoming the harshest difficulties. It is as if Sanyu were reminding himself to be proud and to persevere.

In one of my visits to the late Helen Gee, historian and specialist in photography and wife of the Chinese artist Yun Gee, she gave me a photograph of her and Sanyu taken during her visit to the artist's studio in 1955 in which a magnificent painting of lotuses can be seen behind them on the wall. She recounted how difficult things were for Sanyu at that time when he was being marginalized, not only by the art world, but by the Chinese community in Paris as well. Nonetheless, he remained proud and dignified. Ever since she gave me that photograph, I have wondered where that painting could possibly be. Having seen many photographs of Sanyu's studio at various periods in his life, I am aware that he usually hung paintings he was particularly fond of on his walls, as was the case with Lotus et Poissons Rouges. This is further confirmed by the fact that he submitted the painting to the Salon des Independants in 1956. The large size and rare subject matter of Lotus et Poissons Rouges made its heretofore disappearance even more enigmatic. Over the years, as more paintings surfaced and found their way to the open market, I had been waiting for the re-emergence of this one, knowing that a painting of such importance could not simply disappear.

When it was confirmed that Sotheby's would be offering Lotus et Poissons Rouges for sale this fall, I could hardly contain my excitement and knew with certainty that we would all be in for a treat, a great and delectable treat!

[1] Wang Zhiyi, Wuode pengyou Zhang Daqian (My Friend Zhang Daqian), Taipei: Hanyi seyan, 1993, p. 145
[2] Rita Wong, Sanyu Catalogue Raisonne: Oil Paintings, Tapei: Yageo Foundation and Lin & Keng Art Publication, 2001, nos. 106-109 and nos. 172-174
[3] National Museum of History, The Art of Sanyu, 1995, p. 107

Zao Wou-Ki (Zhao Wuji) (b.1921), 7.4.61. Est. 8,000,000—12,000,000 HKD. Sold 15,780,000 HKD. photo courtesy Sotheby's

Oil on canvas. Signed in chinese and english (lower right); signed in english and dated 7.4.61 (reverse). Samuel Kootz Gallery & Galerie de France labels affixed on the stretcher (reverse); 195 by 114 cm.; 76 1/4 by 44 1/4 in.

EXHIBITED: Zao Wou-ki, peintures, encres de Chine, Fukuoka Art Museum, Grand Art Gallery, Tokyo-Nihonbashi, Fukui Prefectural Museum of Art, The National Museum of Modern Art in Kyoto, The Museum of Modern Art in Kamakura, Japan, October 6, 1981 – June 20, 1982

LITERATURE AND REFERENCES: Zao Wou-ki, Rizzoli International Publishing Inc., Jean Leymaire, Barcelona, Spain, 1979, p.284, (illustrated plate 298)
Zao Wou-ki, peintures, encres de Chine, The Society for International Cultural Exchange, Tokyo, Japan, 1981 (illustrated plate 13)

NOTE: The spatial treatment in traditional Chinese painting has never been naturalistic, in which the illusionist space is broken down into a pictorial space that emphasizes the two-dimensional quality. Accordingly, the undefined space – termed "void" in Chinese terminology – can be sky or water, or a space for inscription. The "void" in Chinese painting deemphasizes, and sometimes defies, the three dimensional, illusionist quality of pictorial space. Due to such de-emphasized spatial quality, the "void" is complementary to the "solid" – the painted areas in the composition.

In the 1980s, Zao Wou-Ki met with renowned poet, Yeh Wei-Lien and discussed the difference in theory between the Eastern and Western perspectives on "void" vs. "solid", "empty" vs. "full", and "solid" vs. "empty:

Some of my compositions are very rich and full, some are more minimal and empty, but for my paintings, it's actually more difficult for me to paint empty or negative spaces. It's much easier to fill a picture than to leave it "empty". Contrary to Chinese ink paintings, where emptiness is created with a lack of ink, oil paintings, at least in my oil paintings, needs to be "created" gradually and carefully – the larger the canvas, the more challenging it is. Of course there are those who prefer to leave the canvas bare to create empty spaces, but I feel that the empty spaces on oil paintings are like living spaces – spaces for one to live in, and experience. There should be a connection between the filled and the empty spaces; as they are merely different layers of living space. Just because it's empty doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. Traditionalism is a very valuable thing... we should accept and embrace it – but the question is, how do we interpret it, make it a part of ourselves?

In 1957, Zao Wou-ki signed his first contract to regularly exhibit his works at Samuel Kootz Gallery in New York – an agreement which continued for 10 years.

In the early 1960s, Zao's experience in New York played an important role his development of Abstract Expressionism; the calligraphic strokes that prominently dominated New York School's Abstract Expressionist paintings definitely inspired and paved the way for Zao Wou-Ki's personal artistic language. Zao's early interest in Chinese calligraphic strokes tended to focus on elusive nuances rather than bold maneuvers; now, assured by Abstract Expressionist paintings, he began in incorporate spontaneous strokes into a compositional integrity. Thus, Zao fully devoted himself to the realm of Lyrical Abstraction.

Zao Wou-Ki's abstract expressionism took form during the late 1950s and early 1960s, although the content of his works never delved into the man vs. the environment conflict on which the New York abstraction school emphasized, it nevertheless demonstrates the sensitivity and affinity towards natural beauty and landscapes. His calligraphy-like brushstrokes and movements, while obviously inspired by Abstract Expressionism, is nevertheless clearly rooted within the Chinese tradition. This embrace of nature has been a fundamental concept of Chinese arts. For thousands of years, natural elements and forces have often been linked with man's emotions, behavior, and state of mind, with a reciprocal interaction between them.

Zao strived to capture the mood prevailing the nature. Zao has admitted that what he makes are Romantic paintings.

What marks Zao's paintings different from other Abstract Expressionist paintings is a sense of rich, near subtle, changes, through which a spatial depth is often indicated.