“Always Flying Kite — The Painting World of Wu Guanzhong” Is Opened at Hunan Museum
pubdate: 2018/10/25   author: zjam  source: zjam  click:

On the morning of October 23, 2018, “Always Flying Kite — The Painting World of Wu Guanzhong” co-sponsored by Hunan Museum and ZJAM was grandly opened at Hunan Museum. The exhibition will be put on from October 23, 2018 to January 10, 2019, at Special Exhibition Hall No.2 of Hunan Museum.

At the exhibition hall

In this exhibition, a total of 80 paintings by Mr. Wu Guanzhong, collected by ZJAM, were exhibited, including 41 sketches including “A Trip to Yunnan” (《云南行》), 10 oil paintings including “Sheep Pen” (《羊圈》), “Eyes” (《眼》) and “Old Dream in South China” (《江南旧梦》), and 29 ink color paintings including “The Forbidden City” (《紫禁城》), “Bamboo Forest” (《竹林》) and “Old House” (《老屋》). These works were selected from the paintings that Wu Guanzhong and his eldest son Wu Keyu donated to ZJAM twice. Mr. Wu Guanzhong always emphasized the social popularity of art works and earnestly practiced what he advocated by donating his works to National Art Museum of China, Singapore Art Museum, Shanghai Museum of Art, ZJAM, and Hong Kong Museum of Art free of charge.

Officials and guests attending the opening ceremony were: Ying Jinfei, executive deputy curator of ZJAM; Jiang Wenhui, deputy director of the Cultural Relics Bureau of Hunan Province; Wei Huailiang, deputy inspector of Hunan Federation of Literary and Art Circles and Hunan Flower and Bird Painters Association; Zhou Neng, secretary of the Party Branch of the Cultural Relics and Archaeology Institute of Hunan Province; Wang Lihua, curator of the Changsha Museum; Chen Zhuo, deputy curator of Changsha Museum; Mao Zhiping, deputy curator of the Changsha Jiandu Museum; Wang Zai, deputy director and associate professor of the Cultural Heritage Protection and Inheritance Research Center of Hunan University, and his colleagues Xie Wei and Li Chong; President Huang Xiao and Vice President Xiong Ying of Hunan Arts Publishing House; Duan Jianghua, president of Hunan Oil Painting Society and professor of the Fine Arts Academy of Hunan Normal University; Li Jianmao, secretary of the Party Committee and executive deputy curator of Hunan Museum. The opening ceremony was hosted by Chen Xuliang, deputy curator of Hunan Museum. Ying Jinfei, executive deputy curator of ZJAM, Li Jianmao, secretary of the Party Committee and executive deputy curator of Hunan Museum, and Jiang Wenhui, deputy director of the Cultural Relics Bureau of Hunan Province, delivered speeches, respectively.

Ying Jinfei, executive deputy curator of ZJAM, attending the opening ceremony and delivering a speech

Li Jianmao, secretary of the Party Committee and executive deputy curator of Hunan Museum, delivering a speech

Jiang Wenhui, deputy director of the Cultural Relics Bureau of Hunan Province, delivering a speech

The guests cut the ribbon for the opening of the exhibition

(From left to right: Duan Jianghua, Huang Xiao, Jiang Wenhui, Ying Jinfei, Wei Huailiang, Li Jianmao)

After the opening ceremony, Ying Feifei served as a guide for the guests and visitors to tour around the exhibition

Since the 1950s and 1970s, Mr. Wu Guanzhong had been devoted to landscape oil paintings and explored the nationalization of oil paintings. He implanted the factors of Chinese traditional art spirit into the creation of oil paintings, and adopted imagery expression to push the local freehand spirit of oil paintings to a new height, injecting oil paintings the beauty of oriental artistic conception. Thus, his paintings were full of lyrical appeal.

Wu Guanzhong (1919-2010), born in Yixing, Jiangsu Province, was a famous contemporary painter, art educator, and essayist. In 1942, he graduated from the Hangzhou National College of Art (predecessor of the China Academy of Art). In 1947, he went to France to study at the National Paris Fine Arts College with scholarship. He returned to China in 1950 and taught at higher art colleges for a long time. He taught at the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Tsinghua University, Beijing Art College, and the Central Academy of Art and Design. In 1991, he was awarded the “Top Order of French Literature and Art” by the French Ministry of Culture. In 2002, he was elected as “Corresponding Member of the Academy of Fine Arts of the Academie Francaise”.

During his lifetime, Mr. Wu Guanzhong continued to explore in and integrate the two fields of Western oil painting and oriental ink painting. He persevered in practicing the “nationalization of oil paintings” and “modernization of Chinese paintings”, emphasizing formal beauty and modernity, and he formed distinctive artistic characteristics. He was also diligent in writing and developed sharp theories. He discussed a series of major aesthetic issues such as abstract beauty, formal beauty, and form determining content in the 1980s. He had a profound influence in the art world.

He emphasized the social popularity of art works and donated many of his works to National Art Museum of China, Shanghai Museum of Art, ZJAM, Singapore Art Museum, and Hong Kong Museum of Art free of charge. This was convincing testimony to his selfless dedication to the society and his noble character.

In late 2009, he donated 56 pieces of his paintings and 16 pieces of his collections to ZJAM. This was the last donation in his life. In November 2010, Mr. Wu Keyu, Mr. Wu Guanzhong’s eldest son, donated 48 sketches of “A Trip to Yunnan” (《云南行》) created by Wu Guanzhong in 1978 to ZJAM, making it the museum that receives the most donations from Wu Guanzhong.

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