Oil on canvas

192×130 cm. 75 5/8×51 1/8 in

Signed in Chinese and dated with one drawing seal on bottom right
PROVENANCE
Important Private Collection, Asia

Born in Yilan, Taiwan, in 1949, Chiu Ya-Tsai was often ridiculed at school due to a persistent stutter that plagued him throughout his childhood. This led him to develop a silent, introverted personality, and he was quite poor in communicative ability. His love of literature, though, would lead others to understand just how vastly rich his inner world had become. The artist is well versed in both ancient and modern literary classics, and the delicate descriptions of characters in the works of Shakespeare, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Sima Qian and other masters of the written word amazed and resonated with him. His passion for art and keen insight into human nature eventually led him to embark on a career in painting, and in the late 1970s, Chiu Ya-Tsai started to become well-known for his portraits in Taiwanese art circles. The characters depicted in his works exhibit a state of complexity under a mask of rationality, evoking a kind of literati-esque atmosphere as the viewer experiences the diverse range of emotions of the subject. In 1984, Jonathan Chang, the director of Hanart TZ Gallery, came to Taiwan and was moved by Chiu Ya-Tsai’s works, and thus, in 1989, Chang held the Dual Exhibition Cheng Tsai-Tung and Chiu Ya-Tsai at Hanart TZ Gallery in Hong Kong. The artist was then later invited to paint portraits for the Hong Kong celebrity Sir David Tang, British politician David Davis, and other well-known figures. These experiences catapulted him toward popularity, and ever since, Chiu Ya-Tsai has been an active and present force in the vast international art scene.
Chow Yu, owner of Taipei’s famous Wisteria Tea House, once said of Chiu’s paintings, “You can never tell what era they are from.” Most of the subjects depicted in his works are tall and lanky, and the artist’s creative style is somewhat similar to that of traditional Chinese claborate-style painting. The pieces Young Man and Gentleman, therefore, are two distinctly representative works being offered at this auction.
Young Man – An Extension of the Self
The subject in Young Man is a tall, slim, and handsome man. The artist paid special attention to painting the character’s elongated oval face with well-proportioned eyebrows, almond-shaped eyes, a straight nose, and a small mouth. He evokes a certain unisex quality of Chinese portraits from the Han （206 BCE–220 CE） and Tang （618–907 CE） dynasties, and in front of the large, dark-blue background, the young man sits alone in a room, creating a cold, lonely atmosphere. The diamond-shaped pattern on his clothing against the quiet background forms a contrast between complexity and simplicity while delivering a visual aesthetic that integrates motion and stillness, reflecting the artist’s deep understanding of image, color gamut, lines, and other creative elements. Anna Maria Jagdfeld, an art collector who once collected many of Chiu Ya-Tsai’s works, once assessed Chiu by saying, “What Chiu Ya-Tsai portrays in his paintings is by no means limited to the appearance of the subject, but he also reflects the characteristics of Chinese art. For him, painting is an extension of ’self-existence’.” This collector, from the viewer’s perspective, appropriately highlights the strengths of Chiu Ya-Tsai. Having passed middle age, the artist has relentlessly expressed his longing for youth and lament for its fleeting nature in his literary outputs, and this young man, with his pale face and red lips, is the epitome of this feeling.
Gentleman – An Unsettled Soul
Comparatively speaking, the protagonist in Gentleman appears more mature. His neat hairstyle and white collar imply his social status while still displaying the temperance and gentleness that is characteristic of intellectuals. The man’s calm face combines with the grayish-green background to reveal the more academic nature of the middle class, and this creates a quiet, restrained atmosphere. In this work, Chiu Ya-Tsai did not focus on depicting the subject’s clothing as in Young Man, but simply painted the man’s upper body, thus generating a sense of loneliness while also allowing the viewer’s attention to be focused on the man’s face. With the subject’s arched eyebrows, long eyes, aquiline nose, and tightly-closed lips, Chiu uses his refined skills of observation to portray an ordinary person in contemporary society. HoweverChiu Ya-Tsai
A Scrutinizer of Time and Human Nature
“I paint the people in my life, portraying their humanity and depicting the social ecosystem in which they live, such as the shimmering skyscrapers and plazas that I envision in my dreams. Whether in the morning, midday, or evening, as long as I observe carefully and use my imagination, inspiration comes to me without any conscious thought. God has given me the ability to use color,
and painting puts a sparkle in my eyes.”
——Chiu Ya-Tsai, despite his common appearance, he exudes an air of unusual indifference and scrutiny, giving viewers the sense that underneath his nonchalant appearance belies a fluctuating, unsettled soul.

Price estimate:
HKD: 900, 000 - 1, 500, 000
USD: 115, 400 - 192, 300

Auction Result:
HKD: 1,062,000