Liu Kuo-Sung (Liu Guosong)

signed and dated 1966 in Chinese, and marked with one seal of the artist
titleslip on reverse: signed and titled in Chinese and English by the artist

Sotheby's Hong Kong, 17 November 1988, Lot 69
Water, Pine and Stone Retreat Collection

Overall in good condition. The paper bears a yellow tone due to age, which can be improved with restoration. Overall framed dimensions: 114.7 by 82.6 cm; 45 1/8 by 32 1/2 in.
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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."

Born in 1932 in Anhui province, Liu Kuo-Sung and his family relocated to Taiwan from Mainland China in 1949. His conviction for ink as a medium of Chinese identity began during his studies of both traditional Chinese painting and Western style painting in the Fine Arts department of the National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU). In 1954, Liu and his classmates submitted works to be shown at the Taiwan Fine Art Exhibition (TFAE), but were rejected since the exhibition committee was biased towards Japanese styled paintings.²Disqualified on seemingly unjust grounds, Liu Kuo-Sung immediately authored several essays analyzing the difference between Japanese nihonga and traditional Chinese paintings, which initiated the debate on the definition of Chinese painting and a lifetime of his own publications on the modernization of ink art. Following the establishment of a diplomatic relationship between the Kuomintang government and the United States, the interest in Japanese art gradually gave way to Western art, whereupon Liu shifted his focus from Chinese painting to Western painting concepts.

Upon graduation from NTNU in 1956, Liu Kuo-Sung and several classmates held an exhibition at the university that focused on Western painting concepts. Inspired by the French Salon de Mai, noted for its regular exhibitions in May, they launched the Fifth Moon Group to also express their desire for a free and experimental spirit to bring freshness to the art world in Taiwan.

Beginning with the influence of Western styles in Chinese art, the Fifth Moon Group artists became the pioneers of modern art in Taiwan with bold styles, complex concepts and diverse use of media. Liu Kuo-Sung, at that time, suggested that the inspiration and impulse for artistic creation should be turned from “imitative” to “abstract”. The founders of the group and later members each blossomed into influential artists experimenting in new directions without the restraint of technique and medium. For example, Hu Chi-Chung created sand-paintings with oil and sand on canvas; Fong Chung Ray combined calligraphy with abstract imagery through the use of collage; and Chen Ting-Shih pioneered an abstract form of late Chinese lithography that uses bagasse plates to form natural cracking patterns in his works.

The establishment of the Fifth Moon Group stimulated Liu Kuo-Sung, who during the group’s most active exhibition period (1956 – 1972) cultivated his fibre-plucking technique from “Liu Kuo-Sung paper”, his distinctive “ink rubbing” technique that involved painting with ink on water (See Spring Mountain (1974) Lot 521) and rubbing a ball of paper in ink to reveal spontaneous lines and creases (See Spring Beneath Snow (1966) Lot 519). Liu was one of the first Taiwanese artists invited to the US exhibitions at major institutions, including the Spencer Art Museum, Nelson Atkins Museum and Seattle Art Museum in the 1960s, which lead him and contemporary ink art to prominence in the international art world. In addition to his moonscapes, Liu’s nature-inspired images always adopted a sense of Western minimalist composition to express his poetic sentiments deeply rooted in his Eastern origin. This hybrid approach to artistic creation, rooted in the traditional ink painting medium, can best describe the contemporary identity that Liu Kuo-Sung sought to provide for his art. With his use of vibrant colour, textured paper and unusual painting techniques, Liu’s paintings catalyze a new chapter for 20^th century ink painting.

¹ Rowell, Galen "100 Photographs that Changed the World", Life Magazine, 2003
² The exhibition was originally launched by the Japanese government during the colonization period as part of the Kominka movement (1937-1945) – a political strategy that attempted to reconstruct Taiwanese society by implanting Japanese culture into education and everyday life.