Chu Teh-Chun (Zhu Dequn)

Acquired directly from the artist by a private French collector in 1978
Important Private Asian Collection

This work is in overall very good condition. There is no apparent inpainting under UV light examination.
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Penetrating to the Core, Unearthing Brilliance

Chu Teh-Chun Composition le 18.2.1978  
In 1956, Chu Teh-Chun had only been in France for one year, and he was still searching for his own artistic voice. He initially explored figurative realism before finding inspiration at a retrospective exhibition at the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris of the work of Nicolas de Staël, a French painter of Russian origin. He realised that he had to look beyond the external form of objects in order to express his observations of life and the natural world in a free and uninhibited way. Thus began Chu Teh-Chun's transition from figurative to abstract painting. Chu responded to the tide of abstract art in post-war France by drawing inspiration from Chinese traditional calligraphy, as well as the artistic expression and aesthetic ideas of Southern Song Dynasty landscape painters such as Fan Kuan and Guo Xi. Gradually, he created his own artistic path of self-transcendence. In the 1960s and 70s, his use of colour became denser and more bold, and his lines grew more fluid and natural. Composition le 18.2.1978 (Lot 1039) completed in 1978, is an exquisite example of the artist's work in the late 1970s.

Expressing the Mystery and Splendor of the Cosmos

The primarily black-and-white Chinese tradition of ink painting does not prominently feature the portrayal of light, but in Chu Teh-Chun's art, light is a central vein of exploration. In addition to inheriting and interpreting the thousand-year-old Eastern painting tradition, Chu was also influenced by the intense contrast of light and shadow in the paintings of the Dutch realist Rembrandt van Rijn.

Composition le 18.2.1978 exemplifies Chu Teh-Chun's unique and profound exploration of light. The background of the painting is a contrasting weave of deep burgundies and blackish greens that serves as a foil for a bright swath of orange and yellow in the lower part of the canvas. The bold colours leap forth like a spark of vitality, dazzling and resplendent amid the shadowy and abstruse space, creating a sense of endless dramatic tension. The artist seems to be delving deep into the core of the earth, his hands aglow with a brilliant beacon. Chu Teh-Chun once said that he hopes to use painting to give people a positive sense of light and hope. The painting overflows with the artist's vision and emotions, which lend the viewer an inexhaustible source of imagination. The world of Chu’s painting reveals to us the brilliance of noon and the raging flames of sundown, a passion for the pursuit of an ideal, and the inextinguishable lustre of life.