Details
CHUANG CHE (B. 1934)
Untitled
signed in Chinese; dated ‘63’ (lower right)
oil and Sumi ink on canvas
23 ¾ x 33 18/sub> in. (57.8 x 84.1 cm.)
Executed in 1963

PROVENANCE
Private Collection, Canada
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Lot Essay

Chuang Che is an internationally exhibited and collected artist known for beautifully fusing Western abstract expressionism and Eastern artistic heritage to create paintings that are dually recognizable yet of an innovative aesthetic. Born in Beijing in 1934, Chuang Che was raised and educated in the Chinese artistic tradition in large part due to his father, who was a calligrapher and a vice-director of the National Palace Museum. In 1948 Chuang moved from China to Taiwan where he would later study and teach fine art. Although he was already engaged in the abstract expressionism movement and styles, Chuang gained first-hand exposure to the West when in 1966 he received a J.D. Rockefeller III Fund grant which brought him to the United States.

From the late 1950s to 1960s Chuang was a member of the Taiwanese artist society called the Fifth Moon Group which experimented with the merging of Chinese painting and Western modern abstraction. As was typical of the early works of the Fifth Moon group artists, this Untitled Chuang Che painting is of a monochrome palette. Influenced by calligraphy and Chinese painting which also utilized the medium of ink, the painting is evocative of the artist-scholar tradition and takes the form of an abstract geometry with the quality of weathered stone created with soft brushstrokes and ink wash. Chuang combined oil and Sumi ink and the process results in a composition that is at once contained and controlled, energetic, and spontaneous.

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