Yuan Jai (Yuan Zhan)

signed YUAN JAI, dated 2001, and with one seal of the artist

United Kingdom, London, Saatchi Gallery, Ink: The Art of China, 19 June - 5 July, 2012, p. 56

Kuo, Jason C., Chinese Ink Painting Now, Distributed Art Publishers, New York, USA; Timezone 8, Hong Kong, China, 2010, pp.194-195, 209
A Visionary Mind: The Art of Yuan Jai in a Quarter-Century, Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts, Kaohsiung, Taiwan, 2012, p. 217

Overall in very good condition. Framed size: 106.7 x 200.7 cm; 42 x 79 in.
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Born in Chongqing, Yuan Jai graduated from National Taiwan Normal University in 1962 majoring in Chinese painting. She studied with great painters and art historians including Pu Xinyu, Huang Junbi, Qin Jinbo, and Lin Yushan. She received an M.A. degree from the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium and a doctoral degree from the Royal Institute of the Preservation of Cultural Artifacts. She also interned at the Asian Department of the British Museum and later returned to Taiwan to establish the conservation lab at the National Palace Museum. Yuan's artistic career can be divided into three main phases: in the early years she built a solid foundation for shuimo and classical paintings; from 1998 to 2006 a period of experimentation and breakthrough, marked by the use of bright colours and silk as a medium; and from 2006 to the present, a mature period with a distinctive and fully-established style, expressed freely with different subject matter and materials. In her paintings, Yuan often combines Song Dynasty kesi textile motifs, Chinese painting landscapes and imagery, and the bright colours of Ming and Qing dynasty imperial ceramics. Little Dragon Playing Ball (LOT 546) is a contemporary interpretation of the iconic dragon chasing the flaming pearl, a potent symbol of strength, good fortune and transformation that dates back to the Yuan dynasty.