Ding Yanyong 1902-1978

Known as the "Matisse of the East," Ding Yanyong combined the beauty of traditional Chinese ink painting with the vigor of Fauvism, using simple lines and lively figures to create his own unique style. Due to limited working space and insufficient budget marterials, most of his works are quite small in size.
The present work offers a rare example of Ding's life-size portrait of a standing Buddha in frontal pose, theatrical characters. In her landmark essay, The Oil Paintings of Ding Yanyong Rita Wong states, " Ding painted two oil paintings with Buddhist subjects: one a bronze statue of a Buddha figure rendered in a simplified and abstract form and the other, an unusually large painting of a standing Buddha. A photograph of Ding with this monumental painting reproduced in a brochure for an exhibition in Japan was attesting to the artist's fondness for it. The standing Buddha's serene expression with downcast eyes is contrasted by an uncharacteristic striped robe decorated with oracle-bone script." This work, in terms of both subject matter and dimension, is undoubtedly a masterpiece in Ding's corpus.