Pen and ink on paper

31 x 41 cm. 12 1/4 x 16 1/8 in.

Signed in Chinese on bottom right； stamp of National-Operated Cultural Relic Store （Gansu Province） on bottom left
PROVENANCE
Original Collection of previous Spain ambassador to Japan
Private Collection, Europe

Scenery full of emotions
Wu Guanzhong's ink and brush
In order to explore the beauty of life and nature, almost every year for the last few decades, I went to visit beautiful places, always carrying my box with painting accessories with me. I use painting to express my love for my motherland. A painter is different from a traveler: I don't just want to roam around my motherland； I wish to hold her in my arms and feel her body heat and heartbeat.
—Wu Guanzhong
In the history of Chinese art, Wu Guanzhong is known for his in-depth observations and meticulous depictions of China's landscapes. In his creations, he often combines various things he has seen or heard, beautiful moments in his memory, and the inner feelings of his mind without sticking to specific sketches. “He easily and freely integrates himself into nature,” said well-known art historian Michael Sullivan. “He devoted his life to artistic innovation by blending the essences of both Eastern and Western aesthetics, thus leaving rich artistic treasures to the world.”
Wu Guanzhong is an extraordinary figure in China's 20th century painting. He always said that “the brush and ink should follow the man” and excelled at capturing specific moments of common daily life, reflecting his own artistic personality and unique, aesthetic oriental views. The works on paper featured in this autumn's Hong Kong auction embody this very artistic characteristic.
Beautiful Life Moments
In the 1980s, Wu Guanzhong experimented with artistic expression in Chinese paintings. He broke free of the shackles of tradition and conveyed the simple feelings of daily life in a new way. Village Street Scene is an outstanding example of this stage. Shortly after the completion of the work, it was published in 1985 in the self-edited album Wu Guanzhong's Chinese Paintings. The two seals present on the painting convey the artist's satisfaction with the work and its significance.
The painting depicts a lively gathering in a small mountain town and has a prominent humanistic atmosphere. The artist uses different shades to form the layering of the distant mountains, his wide brushstrokes and monochrome coloring highlighting the mountains' grandeur. The thick ink dots form the dense, green forest and call attention to the thriving trees, bringing a feeling of infinite vitality to the whole picture and focusing the viewer's vision on the key scene below — the bustling market. Rows of bungalows narrow the central street into a thin line, intensifying the atmosphere of excitement. The bustling crowd makes the viewer almost able to hear the market sounds coming from the picture and allows one to observe life with the artist and experience his inner mind.
In terms of composition, Wu Guanzhong used the majestic mountains in the distance to highlight the bustling scene of the central market. His artistic intuition allowed him to precisely divide the picture space, a reflection of the strict Western classicist training he received during his stay in France, but in his personal expression, he combined traditional Chinese rendering methods with the styling characteristics of Western oil painting to form his unique ink-wash language.
Sunrise: An Ink Poem Written By Nature
The image of a rising sun has been a source of inspiration for countless artists, and Sunrise is one of Wu Guanzhong's masterful depictions of this theme. In this piece, a round, red rising sun is visible over the tops of the mountains, bringing them to life and creating a feeling of a vast space. The towering, heavy peaks are painted with different shades of ink, subtly echoing the misty morning sky. Apart from portraying the wonders of nature, Wu Guanzhong also included dark houses in the bottom part of the picture, showing the co-existence between people and the magnificent environment and highlighting the beauty of the common life between Heaven and Earth.
In Sunrise, Wu Guanzhong boldly reduced the use of color to an absolute minimum. The almost monochrome mountains and houses bring out the resplendent sun rising in the background. The calm and harmoniously balanced brushstrokes evoke a distant mood, showing the artist's skill to maintain inner peace among the noise and still remain faithful to his artistic concept.
Unique Inner World
Landscape and City View are both sketches created by Wu Guanzhong when he was travelling in search of inspiration. The two works are stamped with seals from relic stores in Gansu, Guangdong, and Guangxi, revealing their well-documented provenance.
In Landscape, Wu Guanzhong painted a tall, straight, and aged pine tree using smooth lines and vivid strokes. Mostly thick lines were used to present objects in the foreground, with thin lines for those in the background, giving the picture an intense rhythm. City View, another sketch, focuses the viewer's attention on high-rise buildings and urban life. The artist drew an empty street among the towering modern buildings to depict a quiet moment in a modern city, and the contrasting of complexity and simplicity are the main characteristics of the piece's composition and layout.

Price estimate:
HKD: 30,000 -90,000
USD: 3,800 - 11,500

Auction Result:
HKD : 49,560