Oil on canvas

70×79.5 cm. 27 1/2×31 1/4 in

PROVENANCE
Acquired directly from the artist by present Asian collector

Lyrical Beauty on Canvas
The Iconic Work
of Chen Junde
Carrying on the spirit of a generation of art masters like Liu Haisu and Yan Wenliang, Chen Junde began his pursuit of “harmonizing the art of the East and West and coalescing painting and spirituality” in the late 1970s. Regarded as the “Master of Color in Chinese oil painting, ” Chen combines the detailed representative techniques of modernist and traditional Chinese literati painting with an emphasis on how to express the innermost of emotions through the creation of quiet, colorful, and lyrical oil paintings in the Neo-Shanghainese School. His works are filled with the beauty of life and nature, winning the praise of the art world and adoration of the masses.
River Boat was completed in 1991 during Chen Junde’s sketching period in Qingdao. In those early years, a senior art collector obtained this piece directly from the artist and has treasured the work up until today. This first ever public display of the work allows viewers to witness a taste of the artist’s rare early landscapes of the 1990s. In this painting, the artist focuses on several wooden boats floating on a magnificent body of water. The simple and fluent composition with complementing fore, middle, and background elements gives the painting three-dimensional depth while also leaving viewers with a feeling of endless reverie and lyrical romanticism. The seawater, composed of rich and brilliant colors, ripples gently in the breeze, creating a variety of rhythmic effects throughout the space, layers, lines, and colors of the painting and allowing viewers to experience feelings of relaxation and happiness. The Chen Junde of the 90s had a heightened intuition for color and mature level of painting skill, and this work effusively demonstrates his relaxed, natural, and fluid freehand style. The use of color, brushwork and romantic setting of River Boat puts on display the artist’s confidence in his craft and abundance of creative energy.

Price estimate:
HKD: 200, 000 - 400, 000
USD: 25, 600 - 51, 300

Auction Result:
HKD: 236,000