A relationship between Chew Family and Zhang Daqian

Sotheby will have the privilege to showcase the Chew Family Collection this March. These collections have been preserved for decades, and the calligraphy and paintings bring life to the collection that has been assembled for decades.

Joan Chew, daughter of the well known revolutionary officer General Wu Luzhen, who was in the United States to peruse his study at the California University. Then, she met Thomas Crew and got married to him who was also a fellow student at the business school. They pursued their career together and ran a number of business which was focused on exporting, importing and many others. While doing their trade in Chinese antiques in Carmel, etc. Joan, Frances and Thomas put down roots and stop at Zhang Daqian’sfavourite place: The Dolores Lodge.

Frances Chew studied at different places, and then returned back to California after her father’s death and supported her mother to manage the China Art Center, and become a mentee of Zhang Daqian. She said that Zhang Daqian had a way with way he communicated on art and life where no explanation is required on his work. She passed away in 2017.

In 1967, Zhang Daqian emigrated to the United States where he first stayed at the Carmel then at the Monterey. It was there that he met the Chew family and befriended them, at the Dolores Lodge. During this stay, there were many gifts exchange between the two families, he even gifted them his works such as Water and Sky Gazing after Rain in Splashed Color and Five Fortunes, which Zhang inscribed with wishes for the Chews’ 60th birthday.


Zhang Daqian, also known as Chang Dai-Chien was one of the well known Chinese artist s of the 20th Century. He was originally known as a traditional painter and was also widely known as a modern impressionist and expressionist painter by the 1960s. Also, regarded as a master of forgers of the century during his time.

He was born in Sichuan province to an artistic family but they were financially strugglers. At the age of 12, his first commissioned came around when a fortune teller traveller asked him to paint her a new set of cards. He also learned textile dying techniques at a very young age, and thus later went back to Shanghai and started to sell his paintings and made a successful career.

Wilderness Colors: Shitao's by Zhang Daqian

Zhang Daqian was a good admirer and collector of the works of Shitao (1642–1707); he was additionally an accomplished forger of Shitao's paintings. These acknowledged copies offer a useful resource for connoisseurs of each artists' work. Zhang's paintings are dateless, however the seals all bear legends that he utilized in the late Twenties and Nineteen Thirties, once he was intensely inquisitive about mastering Shitao's painting vogue.

So prodigious was his skill at intervals the medium of Chinese ink and color that it appeared he may paint something. His output spanned a large vary, from archaising works supported the first masters of Chinese painting to the innovations of his late works that connect with the language of Western abstractionism

Zhang's interpretations aren't slavish copies; rather, they're dashing sketches with their own energy and visual charm. notwithstanding, Zhang's paintings ar systematically easier in execution, with fewer colours and fewer detail. A subtler distinction is Zhang's tendency to remodel Shitao's realistic,three-dimensional renderings into flat abstractions.

A final telling distinction between the 2 artists' work is that the handwriting. every of Shitao's inscriptions attracts inspiration from a unique antique master; even at intervals a similar inscription, one will sense a spread of rhetorical sources. Zhang's shorter inscriptions replicate his familiarity with Shitao's most characteristic style, however they lack the various rhetorical influences that distinguish Shitao's writing.

Taro Roots
Eating even one 0.5 receiving the post of prime minister for 10 years.

Bamboo
The wind has diminished when sweeping away the stratified  clouds;
Alone with an open mind I enter the woods.
While the phoenix remains hidden the tree bears few red fruits [i.e., the days aren't propitious];
But I will not let the troubled yellow disturb my contemplative state of mind.

Eggplants
Year when year as summer approaches i'm happy with my new harvest,
This purple color isn't a similar as that of leaves when frost,
Holding the handle [of my hoe] I be part of my friends within the fields.

Orchid and Rock
When one speaks of choosing flowers to present;
If to not a gentleman, then to whom?

Zhang's early skilled painting was primarily in Shanghai. within the late Twenties he affected to national capital wherever he collaborated with element Xinyu.within the Nineteen Thirties he puzzled out of a studio on the grounds of the Master of the Nets Garden in Suzhou.In 1940 he diode a bunch of artists in repeating the Buddhist wall paintings within the Mogao and Yulin caves. within the late Nineteen Fifties, his deteriorating visual modality diode him to develop his splashed color, or pocai, style.

Zhang developed eye issues within the late Fifties. As his vision deteriorated, he developed his mature splashed color (pocai) vogue. Though he attributed this vogue partially to the splashed-ink technique of the traditional painter Wang Mo, several believe it to be associated with that of the Abstract Expressionist movement.

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Buy Zhang Daqian Art Work Ancient Temples Amidst Clouds

Born in 1899 in China’s Sichuan province, Zhang Daqian was a Chinese artist and collector, initially renowned for his guohua or traditional style paintings, though towards the latter half of his career he became an accomplished modern Impressionist. He is also considered one of the 20th century’s greatest forgers.

He started experimenting with the splashed-ink technique in the 1950s and began to move beyond traditional Chinese landscapes which can be traced back more than a millennium to the Tang dynasty-era artist Wang Qia.

In 1965, Zhang Daqian painted Ancient Temples Amidst Clouds and this was ‘a time of great change for him personally . It was the political situation in China that had led Zhang to leave the country in 1949. Therefore, he traveled extensively and lived in Brazil, Argentina, and California. In 1978, he eventually settling in Taipei, Taiwan,.

 The artist was exposed abroad to a much wider range of artistic styles than were available in China, and the experience of new cultures and geographies gave him a great source of inspiration. In the early 1960s,  Zhang’s work in splashed ink became increasingly free and expressive; he began to add splashes of color to his paintings.

In Ancient Temples Amidst Clouds, Zhang he imprint his creative independence directly onto the canvas. He says his way of painting mountains amidst clouds is different from that of Mi Fu and the others. He also added that he forge his own path. The acknowledgment at once highlights the artist’s conscious love with China’s artistic traditions, and his break from it.

Ancient Temples Amidst Clouds  depicts a stylistic shift for Zhang. The artist used colour to create playfulness and depth in the majority of his splashed-ink paintings.  On Ancient Temples Amidst Clouds, he is more restraint; he uses mostly ink. Color is used more as coloring, rather than becoming the central focus of the work.

Zhang Daqain art work creates layers of depth using just one tone, the painting does not feel heavy despite the build-up of ink. Ancient Temples Amidst Clouds  depicts the pinnacle of Zhang’s splashed-ink paintings. His work has left a legacy behind.  It’s the kind of work that always stays in the back of your mind on your mental wish-list.

Splashed-ink was first introduced in the early 9th century by a Chinese painter named Wang Hsia who would smear ink on silk while he was drunk. Its is said the visual psychology of the splashed-ink is derived from the Taoist concept.

To know more about Zhang Daqian  please visit here : http://www.blouinartinfo.com/artists/-zhang-daqian-201506

The Technique Behind Splashed-color Landscape

Born in 1899 in China's Sichuan province is the most significant Chinese artist of the 20th century. Zhang Daqian developed his eyesight problems in the late 1950s while living in Brazil. As his condition deteriorated, he developed his mature splashes color (pocal) style.

This style is seen on his work "Splashed-color Landscape" which depicts abstract expression landscape with titanium mountain region lighted with cerulean and phalo blue deconstructed waterfall. After the creation of the "gold-line" style, the "broken-ink" technique was developed. It was a style to transcribe ink upon paper, and this style stimulated many artists such as Wang Chi, Wang Wei who were all influenced by Chinese Song Dynasty landscape paintings.

Splashed-ink was first introduced in the early 9th century by a Chinese painter named Wang Hsia who would smear ink on silk while he was drunk. Its is said the visual psychology of the splashed-ink is derived from the Taoist concept.

It requires a deep understanding of natural landscape settings as well as academic study of Chinese painting. The ink applied on the canvas gives an almost transparent water color effect that it leaves the viewer to assume that ink was badly used as a medium to paint. There is so much smoothness to the ink painting and is auspiciously smooth to the eye. The ink paint seems to depicts so much justice to the subject matter with its smoothness. The smooth hues blue only emphasize on the waterfalls' conveyance graving on top of black and gray formations.

Zhang Daqian art work " Splash- color Landscape" was dated in 1965 when the politics, world power, military growth and civil rights were all rising. There was a lot of U.S involvement in the Vietnam conflict where more than 4000 marines landed in South Vietnam. There were already about 23,000 Americans who had been serving as military advisers for several years to South Vietnam.
 
During this time while the world powers move in the Pacific, Zhang Daqian was moving abroad to his western studio in order to accomplish the perfection to the works of his subject matter. It was after he became a Buddhist, that the root of his work became a direct reflection of his Zen Buddhism study.
Zhang Daqain art of work ranged from human figure all the way to his popular abstract lotus painting. He created these painting till he reached the final solution of splashed ink and color method to create the abstract paintings.

With overall technique of loosely applied ink, the procedure of free form of the ink splotches and carve the lines of the images delicately bringing dimension of two foot by three fold finished work of art.

To know more about Zhang Daqian  please visit here : http://www.blouinartinfo.com/artists/-zhang-daqian-201506