Oil on canvas

60×101 cm. 23 5/8×40 in.

Signed in Chinese and dated on bottom right
PROVENANCE
Acquired directly by present Asian owner from the artist

he bright moon nestled in the blue sky
Moon, Tuo Musi's love poetry to the prairie
Growing up in Inner Mongolia, Tuo Musi is one of the most distinguished from China's third generation of oil painters. Influenced by the idea, nationalization of art, which was largely advocated by his teacher, Luo Gongliu, he has established his artistic ideal to develop the national spirit of oil painting and has dedicated himself to prairie-themed painting for all his life. Having an eye for the unadorned natural beauty of ordinary life, he pursues the harmonious artistic conception of the image. Through unsophisticated and reserved composition of color, he realized the perfect unification of content and form in his paintings and developed the Prairie School of his own.
In 1981, Tuo Musi held solo exhibitions of his oil paintings successively at the exhibition hall of China Central Academy of Fine Arts and the Cultural Palace of Nationalities, marking the milestone of Inner Mongolian art entering a new stage, and establishing his position in Chinese art world. The presented work, Moon, was completed during this critical year, for the first time being on the market after it was collected 30 years ago with great significance.
The work, Moon, depicted the prairie landscape at night that a man leads a horse back from grazing, with the bright moon up in the sky. Two contrasting mono colors, dark grey and light blue, form the background in two halves, building the space for sky and earth. The large area of cloisonnism of the background makes the single color pure yet significant, depicting the vast expanse of land under the blue sky. At the lower part of the image stand a man and a horse of relatively smaller size. The nomadic man wears purple ethnic clothing. A red belt at his waist draws the viewers' attention intensively, as the only warm touch of the whole image. Up in the light blue sky which occupies half of the painting, lies only the bright moon, in response with the wooden cart quietly placed at the bottom-right, creating a lyrical artistic conception as charming as the poetry of Neruda, boundless and tranquil, elegant and sublime.

Price estimate:
HKD: 300,000 - 400,000
USD: 38,200 - 51,000

Auction Result:
HKD : 354,000