WU GUANZHONG | Bombax Woods on Hainan Island

executed in 1960

Important Private Asian Collection 

Shui Tianzhong & Wang Hua, ed., The Complete Works of Wu Guanzhong Vol. II, Hunan Fine Arts Publishing House, Changsha, 2007, p. 78
Wu Keyu, ed., World Famous Artist: Wu Guanzhong, Hebei Education Publishing House, Shijiazhuang, 2010, p. 64 

The work is overall in very good and its original condition. As in its original condition, there are the artist’s pinholes at the extreme edges. Examination under UV light reveals no sign of restoration.
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 “Having been to all corners of my motherland, to the remote areas and poverty-struck villages, I had come to know intimately the scent of the earth and the pure heart of the people. Devoid of distractions and temptations of fame and fortune, I cultivated in solitude for three, four decades, pursuing nothing but my own artistic ambitions. During those years, I became completely isolated with the external world, and I was for the most part poorly informed of world affairs, yet it was during those years when I truly lived and grew, right here in my homeland.”
excerpt from Wu Guanzhong, Mei Chou Yuan (Beauty, Ugliness and Fate)  In early 1950s, a new China was just beginning, and artists first explored the idea of a Chinese style of oil paintings. Spurred on by the excitement of building a new society, many artists including Wu Guanzhong responded to the call. A wide range of original works depicting the life and atmosphere of a new era came forth, and soon such works became the mainstream. In 1956, Wu Guanzhong assumed the position of the Head of the Oil Painting Teaching and Research Section at the Beijing Normal Academy of Fine Arts. For eight years, he visited many cities and rural areas in order to realize this goal. Bombax Woods on Hainan Island (Lot 1033) is a representative work from this period, carrying the artist’s incredible cultural confidence and immense patriotism.

The Southern Landscape: Forging New Artistic Paths

An exotic southern island full of regional colours, the atmosphere is richly humanistic and cultured. For Wu Guangzhong, who strived to revolutionise his creative output and feverishly sought colours in his art, Hainan was hugely exciting. In the summer holiday of 1960, the artist went to Hainan on a self-funded journey, where he endured the blistering heat and painful forest insect bites. Such an arduous creative journey not only reflected Wu Guanzhong’s artistic footprints all over the country, but also offered a moving story characteristic of its time about the present work.

The artist completed five landscape paintings of Hainan, according to The Complete Works of Wu Guanzhong, and among them the present lot is the earliest. The other paintings include: Cocunut Woods and Buffaloes (oil on board, 46 x 61 cm), of the same dimension as the present work, as well as Citronella Treatment Factory on Hainan Island (oil on board, 61.2 × 46 cm) had been gifted to the National Art Museum of China and Hong Kong Museum of Art by the artist himself and his family members. Bombax Woods on Hainan Island will appear for the first time in the upcoming Sotheby’s spring sale, and will offer an invaluable opportunity for collectors, as the work embodies the artist’s explorations during an early period and suggests the evolution of his later artistic approach.

Directed by Emotions: The Beauty of the Imagined Domains

Wu Guanzhong’s 1950s and 60s artistic output was largely representational. Nevertheless, in these paintings, the artist had already began incorporating subjective spatial composition into the landscape depicted, combined with forms that were slightly exaggerated and morphed. From a distance, the present lot goes against Chinese painting tradition, which follows a front-heavy approach. In contrast, the work opens to thick vegetation and farmers in the distance, forming a complex and varied visual focus, constructing a marvelous depth of field. Upon closer examination, the earth-yellow soil and the bright green field of pepper leaves alternate horizontally, widening the layers of different colours. Bombax trees with thick green foliage stands heroically from the ground, reaching up to the sky, effortless and nearly-vertical. Lines and surfaces crisscross on the canvas under the artist’s ingenious composition, bringing to mind Matisse’s avant-garde treatment of colour blocks and lines. In Bombax Woods on Hainan Island, the artist expresses a fearless embrace of the environment on a rustic island, overcoming all hardship, and the beating of his heart, while still displaying passion and innocence that is the province of youth, flowing over to this day.



According to The Complete Works of Wu Guanzhong Vol. II, this work was wrongly dated some time after its actual completion, as it was painted in 1960