Ink and colour on paper

84.7×60.8 cm. 33 3/8×23 7/8 in

Signed in Chinese and Pinyin, dated on bottom center
PROVENANCE
Acquired directly from artist’s relative by original owner
Private Collection, Asia

Ingenious Work of a Talented Lady
Yellow Flowers by Fan Tchunpi
Fan Tchunpi was a female painter who belonged to the first generation of Chinese artists active in Parisian art circles. She was born in the 24th year of the Qing Dynasty Emperor Guangxu’s reign to a well-known family in Fujian Province, and in 1912, the then 14-year-old came to France to study, becoming the first Chinese woman admitted to the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-arts de Paris. In 1925, she returned from France to teach at Guangdong University and was highly respected by the Lingnan art community, and the Kuomintang government even purchased her works for a very high price and displayed them at Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hall. After China’s victorious end to the second Sino-Japanese War, Fan Tchunpi organized a sensational, large-scale solo exhibition in Shanghai, and in 1984, the Cernuschi Museum in Paris hosted a retrospective exhibition to showcase 60 years of the artist’s work, fully affirming her achievements as an oriental female painter who started her artistic career in Paris. Fan has worked tirelessly all her life, her oil painting A Flute Player the first work done by a Chinese female artist that was featured in at a Paris exhibition, but she is best known for her traditional Chinese rice paper ink paintings, of which one outstanding representative piece, Yellow Flowers, is now up for auction.
The painting features yellow flowers in full bloom, encircled by green leaves and forming harmonious springtime scenery. The picture can be divided into three parts： the bamboo trellis at the top is gently echoed by the bamboo pole on the left； the yellow flowers in the middle seem vibrant in moves, something that is very much in contrast with the static bamboo； and the bottom part features no flowers, only meandering vines. The composition adopted by the artist shows a gradual change from the dense allocation of elements on the top to the few and scattered items in the lower part, attracting the viewer’s interest. The picture is quite reminiscent of a poem written by Song Dynasty （960-1276 C.E.） poet Yao Shuyao： “The white geese are flying toward me, indicating that the frost will come soon； the yellow flowers under the fence are elegant and beautiful and seem to be as reluctant to leave as I am.”

Price estimate:
HKD: 120, 000 - 180, 000
USD: 15, 400 - 23, 100

Auction Result:
HKD: --