Huang Guanyu

signed in Chinese and dated 78, framed

Private Collection, Canada

China, Beijing, National Art Museum of China, Contemporaries, July, 1980

China Writer, issue 9, China Writer Press, Beijing, China, 1980, Inside Front Cover
China Pictorial, issue 11, China Pictorial Press, Beijing, China, 1980, p. 23
Beijing Literature, issue 1, Beijing Literature Press, Beijing, China, 1981, Front Cover
Art Works, issue 7, People's Fine Arts Publishing House, Beijing, China, 1981, unpaginated
Michael Sullivan, Art and Artists of Twentieth-Century China, University of California Press, Berkeley, USA, 1996, pl. 64; People's Fine Arts Publishing House, Shanghai, China, 2013, pl. 64
Li Haijian ed., Fifty Chinese Oil Artists- Huang Guanyu, Hainan Publishing House, Haikou, China, 2006, p. 42
Huang Guanyu's Painting Collection, People's Fine Arts Publishing House, Beijing, China, 2007, unpaginated
Art of China, Chinese Art Publishing House, Beijing, China, 2008, p. 8
Huang Guanyu's Painting Collection II, People's Fine Arts Publishing House, Beijing, China, 2012, p. 139

This work is generally in good condition. There are minor wear and handling marks around the edges. Having examined the work under ultraviolet light, there appears to be no evidence of restoration.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

July: Huang Guanyu, the Tongdairen Period

 In July 1980, the National Art Museum of China held an exhibition titled "Tongdairen Oil Paintings." Featuring over 80 works by 15 young painters, it was the first group exhibition in the museum’s history featuring artists who did not belong within the official art system. Huang Guanyu was an important member of the Tongdairen ("Contemporaries") group, and his works in the show, subsequently collected by the museum and foreign buyers, attracted widespread attention. One of the most popular of these was July (Lot 22), an oil painting Huang completed in 1978. This work was featured in both the People's Pictorial as well as Beijing Literature and Art. After the exhibition closed, it was purchased by renowned journalist and writer Israel Epstein, a Chinese national of Polish descent. This auction marks the first time the painting is available on the market.

The Tongdairen group was formed in the 1970s by young painters who had received specialized training at the Middle Fine Arts School Affiliated to China Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA). The story of Huang Guanyu is highly representative of this group of painters: born in the 1940s, he received an education in the arts at the CAFA Affiliated School and gained admittance to the Decorative Design Department of the Central Institute of Arts and Crafts (the school’s president then was Wu Guanzhong). After graduating, the artist worked in arts organizations in the fields of publishing and dance stage design. At the time, unlike at CAFA, where the influence of the realist techniques of the Suzhou School was prevalent, the Central Institute of Arts and Crafts featured an art curriculum with a greater emphasis on form and the integration of art, design, and crafts.

Huang Guanyu and classmates such as Wang Huaiqing, Qin Long, Sun Jingbo, Sun Weimin, Zhang Hongnian, and Zhang Hongtu were considered contemporaries in terms of time, but they were also peers in that they were likeminded artists. Prior to the end of the Cultural Revolution, they often met on weekends, painting at a garage where the PLA Song and Dance Ensemble stored stage props. Using catalogues and old magazines, they studied early Western Modern Art, including the paintings of Matisse and Klimt. In this private, relaxed environment, these young artists attempted to cast off the topical model of creation that had become closed and rigid, in favour of pursuing the expression of beauty and the self.

In the late 1970s, Wu Guanzhong became a vocal proponent of formal and abstract beauty, and Huang Guanyu, as a beginning to his professional career, put his teacher's ideas into practice. In July, a highly aestheticized, representative work, a girl in a white dress, surrounded by blossoming flowers, bends her head over a book that rests in her hands. The creation of this painting is closely tied to the political and cultural environment at the time as China's universities and colleges ceased admitting students during the decade-long Cultural Revolution period. It was not until October 1977 that the college entrance examination system was restored, and the model for the girl in the painting was in fact a young student who had just taken the exam in 1978. The brushwork betrays the influence of Post-Impressionism, but in composition and use of colour, July has a highly decorative effect that can be traced to Huang's professional experience. During the Cultural Revolution, oil paintings in China primarily featured robust workers, peasants, and soldiers depicted as "tall, big, and perfect" figures in "red, bright, and shining" colours. The tranquil and natural tableau of July undeniably injected fresh air into the post-Cultural Revolution oil painting scene, its canvas exuding youth and beauty of a real quality. While Huang drew on Western techniques, he also continuously sought a language of oil painting that was very Chinese, demonstrated by elements like the traditional seal in place of a signature on the lower-right corner of the canvas. This feature reveals that Huang shared Wu's enthusiasm for "the nationalization of oil painting."

Huang Guanyu and the other Tongdairen painters gave precedence to theme, allowing content to determine form: ideological decisions that represented the disintegration of official artistic standards. These statements symbolized the artists' determination to gain creative independence from the state. In the words of the critic Tao Yongbai, "The significance of 'Tongdairen' goes far beyond the narrow sense of painters and a single exhibition. It expresses more than the voice of a group of young painters; it represents the common voice of a people of an oppressive era". And for this reason, the Tongdairen painters deserve to be considered pioneers of their times.