Crayon on paper

14.7 x 10.2 cm. x 25 3/4 x 4 in. x 2

LITERATURE Left: Lin & King Gallery, Taipei, WU DA-YU:Works On Paper, 2010, p.232.
Right: Lin & King Gallery, Taipei, WU DA-YU:Works On Paper, 2010, p.343.
Fu Ren Books, china , Ten Letters From Wu Dayu, p18, 2015.

WU DAYU
1903-1988
Wu Da-Yu had an enormous contribution in the development of Chinese abstract paintings; he promoted the novel, heuristic creative teaching together with Lin Feng-Mian during serving as Head in Western Painting Department of National Hangzhou Fine Art Institute. As a pioneer of modern abstract painting, many existing artists such as Wu Guan-Zhong, Zao Wou-Ki, Chu Teh-Chun and Chao Chun-Xiang all had once learned from Wu. He had drawn on the thinking ways of modern Western arts to look for and perceive Eastern artistic expression language in ancient Chinese philosophy, he explored and fought between figurativeness and abstraction, the West and the East, as well as objectiveness and self, and he had imaginatively and ingeniously activated Western art forms and integrated broad and profound Chinese classical cultural spirits into them.

Through drawing on the artistic thinking ways of Western modern arts to look for and perceive Eastern artistic expression language in ancient Chinese philosophy thoughts, and the pursuit of integrating Western abstract skills into personalized Eastern meaning and rhyme, Wu Da-Yu had created a rhythmic and circulated pure beauty like music. Just as expressed in his letter to Wu Guan-Zhong: “For the purpose of showing and exposing to people’s eyes, what can be presented is only limited to obscure pose and phenomenon, and the beauty of the pose and phenomenon is clear like ice and clean like moon, containing weight sense with no phenotypic trait, more abstract than pose and phenomenon of a building, and also like an image in front of eyes conveyed by music, rippling its charm with no sound, like beauty of a dance leaving its posture and movement still, and like a good sentence without given its words.”

The two crayon-painted artworks auctioned in this event are precisely the fine items of the artist’s small works. From the serene and quiet but colorful colors, we can feel that when devoting himself to creation the painter often leans on window side to continuously depict the attractive scenes while observing the changing seasons. When in modeling abstraction, the painter often interprets the intricate and complicated world onto the canvas at very fast speed, thus demonstrating excellent flows and jumping shapes, and making the picture beat a strong pulse of life. His smooth strokes blended the essence of Chinese calligraphy and Western architecture, thus fully revealed Chinese and western charms between blending of forms and colors. Through using residual heat of his life to pursue ideal realm of spiritual freedom and personality representation, Wu Da-Yu thus had created abstract paintings permeated with humanistic feelings.

Price estimate:
HKD：80,000 - 120,000
USD：10,300 - 16,000

Auction Result:
HKD: 115,000