Oil on canvas

140 x 197 cm.55 1/8 x 77 1/2 in.

Signed in Chinese on the upper left
LITERATURE Artron Color Printing, Beijing, China, Works of Wang Huaiqing, 2004, p.86.
Linnan Fine Arts Publication, Shenzhen, China, History of River-The Chinese Oil Painting Exhibition In New Era, November 2005, p.222.
Ediciones Poligrafa, Spain, Wang Huaiqing-A Painter’s Painter in Contemporary China, 2010, p.196-197.
EXHIBITED Beijing, China, National Art Museum of China, History of River: The Chinese Oil Painting Exhibition of New Era, 26 November – 7 December 2005.

WANG HUAIQING
(b.1944-)
Structured in tradition, mapped out a new situation – Wang Huai-Qing
1956 Wang Huai-Qing passed the admission examination of the Affiliated Senior High School of Central Academy of Fine Arts, and in 1979 he was admitted to enroll in graduate program of Central Academy of Fine Arts. Back In early 1980s, Wang Huai-Qing had sprung into fame with the historical theme painting “Bole—Judge of Horses”, this painting is extremely rich in its modern style and structure as well as profound meaning, and none of these is unspectacular. In 1985, Wang Huai-Qing went to Shaoxing for sketching, this trip brought a profound inspiration to the artist’s creation, just as what said by the well-known critic Jia Fang-Zhou: “The white walls and black tiles, and old buildings with beam structures in Jiangnan water villages, as well as the unique cultural atmosphere presented by these building spaces, deeply activated his artistic soul; from this he had expanded and developed a little bit by little bit, from buildings to furniture, and used black and white as “native language” and wooden structure as “motif” to create a series of masterpieces with “constructive force”, marking his artistic maturity and success.” Wang Huai-Qing has tried to explore new formal syntax from tradition, and his artistic techniques has been increasingly refined during his exploration of Chinese cultural space; in the meantime the cultural significance contained in Chinese architecture and furniture of his pictures has began to change, and has been more deliberately in reshaping Chinese traditional images from deconstructing boundaries between Chinese and Western arts. Up to this point, Wang Huai-Qing has really established his artistic style and keynote and his position in contemporary art world.

Wang Huai-Qing had once went to the United States for investigating arts for two years, as a oil painter trained by strict traditional art education, facing the two art propositions of Chinese tradition and Western wave can not be bypassed, Wang Huai-Qing but more firmed his determination of returning to homeland and struggling to create on traditional cultural soil of China.

Painstakingly refining, see the world in “Chinese Couch”
Wang Huai-Qing’s art creation transited from Chinese classics into modernism, and has moved a step further on the basis of old masters; he has brought modern spirit into contemporary context, and used lines, shapes and structures, and black and white colors, as well as subject matters to create a constantly stressed “structural balance”, making his works full of awe-inspiring forces. The construction of the work “Chinese Couch” came from the aura on a scrap paper, he was very fond of this composition setting, and moved it onto canvas only after repeated considerations and layout modifications. Wang Huai-Qing’s this work has a consistent characteristic always presented in his furniture series: simplicity, neatness and clearness of traditional Ming-style wooden furniture, its line feet thoroughly pass through, and the classic shape and structure of “feet stepped on supportive earth” reflect the beauty of Chinese traditional furniture, demonstrating elegance and grace. In particular, this work is more purified and restrained in its form, basically it only uses gray white powder walls as background, and the senses of space distance and body volume of object are simply constructed by three neat black blocks supplemented with reverse lines, besides, it even contains a unique Chinese style universe concept, the rationale of yin-yang consistency presented by alternate blacks and whites, and engagement of mortises corresponds to the space rhythm of interleaved actuality and virtuality through clever blankness on picture arranged by the artist; in this work, Wang Huai-Qing used a multi-perspective organization to present the different angles and patterns of an elongated couch, making it own both “full-glance” construct of cavalier perspective in Chinese calligraphy and painting and the break-through spirit of Western Cubism to breakthrough the span of time and space. In the part of coloring, the artist moderately softened the gray white background with underlying rich but faint warm colors, and concisely and briefly represented the overall space and light-dark relationship in-between thick texture changes of paints, and also laid the texture of time-filled history and deposition of times; and the black block surfaces and lines of main body of the picture uses Wei monument calligraphic style as skeleton, theirs shapes and knuckles are square and steep, and body structures are luxuriant and dense, so it even reflects the epigraphical flavor of Wei monument calligraphy in addition to presenting graceful ease temperament of Ming-style furniture.

From the extremely wonderful blankness structure on the picture, black and white division, and rich underlying processing, as well as the just right organization and integration, we can clearly see the extraordinary mind and energy invested in the work by the artist, just as the painting concept held by Shi Tao: Painting composition is not only a form issue of arranging positions, it is even one of the important factors that reflect the artistic conception of the work. Wang Huai-Qing’s ultimate pursuit of high refinement and geometrical structure for object images on pictures has finally made his works present a sort of pure solemn feeling approaching eternity and resorting to nature. Attentively viewing, the three furnitures are as if mutually inter-dependent, and construct ingenious spatial relationships with each other, but each of them also seems implies an elegant leisure gesture, having the idea of Zen revealed by the works of the artist Shi Ke in Five-Dynasty and the Rinzai Zen master Honorable Gibbon in Japan's Edo period. Just as the evaluation made by Wu Huang-Zhong on Wang Huai-Qing: “Many Western artists such as Kline and Soulages are trying to figure out and absorb the black and white architecture of our calligraphy, however, Wang Huai-Qing’s architecture is not just a single formal specification, because both the nation’s soul and Shi Tao’s mind have enlightened the direction of Wang Huai-Qing’s exploration. My feelings or associations of his work are not necessarily implied by the author, in order to nurture innocence, the author had worked very hard to play the deterrence of “black” through emphasizing the interleaving of black and white, refining layout of texture, and arranging a orderly living space without sound. As an object containing deep and thick history and culture, “Ming-style furniture” has become the extension of the spiritual temperament of Chinese literati. “Great uprightness appears easy-going, Great wisdom appears slow-witted, Great disputer appears taciturn.” In the work “Chinese Couch”, Wang Huai-Qing used the arrangement and organization of traditional furniture to construct his own artistic language with deep originality, and reproduced the sophisticated thoughts of Lao Zi and Zhuang Zi as well as the essence of Chinese culture on the aesthetic simplicity of Western modernism while also holding innocent and humorous Zen fun, so it can be described as a masterpiece integrating Eastern and Western cultures. This work was created in 1999, and had been invited to participate in “The River---Retrospective Exhibition of Oil Paintings in New China” held by National Art Museum of China in November 2005, and was included in the exhibition picture album, it is expected that it can get the enthusiastic response from major collectors of Wang Huai-Qing’s art creations.

Price estimate:
HKD：9,000,000 - 12,000,000
USD：1,161,300 - 1,600,000

Auction Result:
HKD: 10,350,000