Oil on canvas

63.8×44.8 cm. 25 1/8×17 5/8 in

Signed in English on lower left； signed, titled and dated on the reverse frame
PROVENANCE
Acquired directly from the artist by original owner
Private Collection, Paris

A Humble Depiction of Reality
The Utopist Hoo Mojong
“The process of painting is a never-ending pursuit of pure simplicity. To achieve such a goal, one must never stop searching and continue to live boldly. Even though I myself am an introvert and rather lonely person, this does not at all mean that I am depressed or pessimistic. I just like the simple things in life, and I hope to be able to show my concern for the world and all humankind through my simple paintings.”
– Hoo Mojong
As one of the first Chinese female artists to study abroad and receive influence from Western fauvism, Hoo Mojong’s accomplishments can almost be recognized the same as those of Zao Wou-Ki and Pan Yuliang. A lifelong drifter who lived in various countries and regions throughout her life, including Shanghai, Taiwan, Brazil, and France, Hoo’s works do not display gentle and sophisticated beauty characteristic of Pan Yuliang, Kuan Tzu-lan, and her other contemporaries living abroad. Quite on the contrary, her works show an appreciation of everyday life and thus unveil the charm of art and the artist’s warm and honest soul.
Hoo Mojong was born to a well-off family in the Chinese city of Ningbo in 1924. From very early on, she received direct influence from her mother, a painter, which led the future artist to develop a certain interest in art making. Once the second Sino-Japanese War began, her entire family moved to Shanghai to flee the devastation, and during that time, Hoo Mojong worked at a factory to help cover family expenses during the day and attended art school at night, never giving up her dream of one day becoming an artist. In 1950, she moved to São Paulo and would stay there for ten years, and it was then that her outstanding abilities and ceaseless determination won her great recognition in the Brazilian city’s most renowned art gallery, São Luis, with which she was able to be presented for her first solo exhibition. In 1965, the then 41-year-old moved to Paris, and she had the phenomenal opportunity to paint every day at the famous Atelier de la Grande Chaumière, where in 1968 she won the gold prize at the Salon des Femmes for her highly praised oil painting series Toy Stories, being recognized as one of the city’s most brilliant painting talents ever since.
Unordinary Works from the Paris of the 1960s
As Hoo Mojong moved a lot, most of her works from Brazil that were made during the 1950s have already become lost. The painting auctioned here, The Dao Wrestlers, is one of the artist’s earliest oil paintings currently available on the market. Very few works of the Toy Stories series remain, especially those actually available for auctioneers, making this particular work all the more precious. The Dao Wrestlers was first bought very early on by a French collector before being stored for several years and passed on to his descendants. It was first exhibited to the public after almost half of a century, so its value here at auction cannot afford to be overlooked.
In The Dao Wrestlers, the painter applied the same four colors characteristic of all Toy Stories paintings： black, green, brown and orange, which are used here to compose two personas. The plain coating on the majority of the painting is thick and dense, a stark indication of the fauvists’ influence on the artist. The two people are most probably father and daughter, brother and sister, or maybe a pair of close friends, if not lovers. Both are lying down, holding themselves tightly as their heads gaze downward. The upper silhouette’s arm is facing down and the lower one’s right leg is stretched, leaving an impression that the two are wrestling while at the same time introducing a kind of balance and symmetry to the painting. The table and the chair are simple geometric shapes, cleverly squeezed in the painting’s central position. The “action” of the silhouettes and “stillness” of furniture, therefore, contrast with each other, composing a certain unique harmony. There was a significant shift in the artist’s style right after she had arrived in Paris in 1965, at which time she was influenced by Sanyu, another artist painting at the Atelier. Compared to her Brazil-era, Hoo’s style became more unsophisticated, compact, thick, and simple, and it is these characteristics that have shaped her painting style for the rest of her life.
Clumsiness for Authenticity, Charm from Purity
Hoo spent all of her life contemplating painting. She had a peculiar habit of not being completely satisfied with her works and would thus frequently modify them time and time again. In fact, the bottom part of The Dao Wrestlers with the chair and the table has some remnants of such alterations, all but showing the way Hoo lived as she endlessly pursued beauty. Apart from painting, she led a simple life, wore old clothes, and did not seem to have much care about other things. Such simple mannerisms are also reflected in her art, with her clumsy and hasty brush techniques along with the use of a painting knife resulting in a motley texture that resembles the normal wear and tear that objects leave over time, thereby imbuing the work with a more rustic feeling.
With her unique style of expression, Hoo Mojong gained much approval among the older generation of foreign art masters. For example, in the 1950s, Chang Dai-chien, also residing in Brazil at the time, invited Hoo to his banquets on several occasions. He wanted to show her works to more art professionals, although the modest Hoo Mojong always politely turned the invitations down, rather focusing solely on painting itself. She later spent almost 40 years in Paris, a place where every form of painting has no problem finding enthusiasts or success. But even there, she never cared about fame or glory and had little mind to join the mainstream art community. When comparing her observations of the world, she was far better at observing and analyzing her own thoughts and feelings, staying out of the limelight, and silently continuing working. She never sacrificed anything for the sake of popular art and, in this sense, was a pure “utopist”. Hoo Mojong also never showed off her abilities in her works, and she always tried to present life just as it is – genuine and pure. The warmth, present in all of her emotional paintings, provides an exceptional occasion to leave the mainstream while still allowing viewers to appreciate fantastic style.

Price estimate:
HKD: 350, 000 - 700, 000
USD: 44, 900 - 89, 700

Auction Result:
HKD: --