Lu Hong

signed in Chinese and dated 1983 on the reverse, framed

Private Collection, China
China Guardian, Beijing, 14 May, 2005, lot 0045

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Tremendous changes have taken place in China ever since the reforms of the 1980s and modern  Chinese Art has similarly been stimulated to revolution by the flood of western literary thoughts. Lu Hong was one of a group of artists with active minds who to took the initiative to go abroad in order to explore the world. After graduating from the Oil Painting Department in Zhejiang Institute of Arts in 1982, she pursued further studies at the Rochester Institute of Technology and the Art Students League of New York successively. Her works have been exhibited several times internationally.

Without doubt, the title Taking Off is intended as a pun. On one hand, it shows the real scene in a departure hall, which likely references the artist’s lonely experiences of oversea study as a stranger in a foreign land. On the other hand Taking Off also refers, on a deeper level, to the comprehensive take-off of the Chinese economy after the Third Plenary Session. Lu Hong composed the painting using an in-depth perspective that extends from the door to a distant space to create a photographic effect. World of the Female Artist is filled with tranquil and peaceful domestic feelings, totally different from the profundity and haze of thoughts found in other works of the same period. Here, the sun shines through the huge glass window into the lobby with an impressionist tone which shrouds the figures. The characters in the foreground dress and behave differently from the strongly charactered foreigners around them. Some look around curiously and others appear to be anxious. The young girl in the centre of the painting seems to be standing between the plane of the painting and the viewer. She is the only one who turns her head to look back at the viewer with calm and joy in her eyes.