Xie Jinglan (Lalan)

signed Lalan and dated 72 on the reverse, framed

Acquired directly from the artist by the current owner

Some dirt scuffs along the edges in the top left and right corners and along the top edge. Otherwise generally in good condition.
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Born Xie Jinglan in China, Lalan trained in music at the Hangzhou Academy. In 1948 at the age of 24 she moved to Paris where she lived with her first husband Zao Wou-ki, then a young teacher at Hangzhou and an emerging artist of great promise. The young couple had originally intended to stay in Paris for a relatively short period. They were not to know that the country they had left behind would soon be taken over by Mao, and that France would become their permanent home.

Lalan would remain in France for almost fifty years, and acquired French nationality despite firmly retaining strong links with her cultural roots. In her first years in Europe she travelled extensively with Zao, with whom she developed a thorough knowledge of Western art and at the same time learnt how to look at painting, training which proved invaluable when she started painting herself a decade later.

She was a passionate and immensely talented all-round artist: in addition to being a painter, she was also a musician, a dancer, a choreographer, a director, a writer and a poet.

During her first eight years in Paris she studied composition at the Conservatoire supérieur de Paris and took dancing lessons at the American Center. However as Zao's career quickly went from strength to strength, as the artist's wife, Lalan remained in second place, and her devotion to supporting her husband left little room for personal creativity.

Her love of music brought her to a performance of music written to Henri Michaux's "La Ralentie". The composer was Marcel Van Thienen, a sculptor and musician. Van Thienen and Lalan became friends and their relationship soon developed into an affair which would bring an end to Lalan's marriage to Zao Wou-ki. In 1956 the couple separated, and Lalan married Van Theinen in 1958.

Her new lifestyle gave her more freedom and she soon began to paint. The brush came to her naturally and even her early work was to reflect the blend of Chinese tradition and contemporary abstraction that later would characterize her work as a whole. 

Lalan's work is a fusion of two cultures: French and Chinese, and constantly reminds us of reminds us of this cultural duality. In addition to Zao Wou-ki, she  was part of a group of other Chinese artists in Paris at the time including Pan Yuliang, Sanyu and Tang Haiwen, all of whom managed to find a balance between contemporary Western painting and traditional Chinese ink painting.

When together with Zao the couple had been friendly with several western artists including Sam Francis, Maria Helena Vieira da Silva, Pierre Soulages and Henri Michaux, whose influence may be seen in her early oils. However she also drew inspiration from her native culture: prehistoric bone and tortoiseshell inscriptions (which Zao had also studied), Qin dynasty stone inscriptions, and decorative motifs from ancient jade carvings as well as Chinese calligraphy and landscape painting were among her influences.

Perhaps the most profound influence in her painting however comes from music and dance: rhythm and movement are integral notions in her work. Much of her work evokes movement in such a way as to suggest mini-choreographies, ballets enacted across the paper or canvas. This inspiration was enhanced by the artist's lifelong passion for dance.

Nominated Chevalier dans l'ordre des arts et des letters by the French Ministry of Culture in 1975, she enjoyed several successful exhibitions in her lifetime and her works are now in the collections of the Musee d'art moderne, the French National Contemporary Art Fund, the Regional Contemporary Art Fund, several cultural centres in France, the Society of Music Writers and Composers, the Ministry of Commerce and Industry and numerous galleries and private collections around the world.

In the spirit of a true Chinese scholar, she was highly modest and much of her work remains little known. It therefore brings us great pleasure to offer to the market three early works of hers and give her the promotion that she long shied away from.