Oil on canvas

130 × 195 cm. 511/8 × 763/4 in.

Signed in Chinese and English, dated on bottom right; titled, signed in English and Chinese, dated on the reverse
PROVENANCE
Private Collection, Asia
4 Apr 2016, Poly Hong Kong Spring Auction, Lot 112
Important Private Collection, Asia

Elevating Heroic Spirit through Lightning and Fire
Expansion– A Masterpiece by Chinese Abstract Master Chu Teh-Chun
The works of Chu Teh-Chun, one of the most influential international abstract painters today, use “images that go beyond images” to guide “transcendent landscapes.” His paintings combine Eastern and Western brushwork, “introduce light sources that awaken image and rhythm” and ultimately create a world of ink comprised of poetry, calligraphy and painting as one integrated whole.
In 1941, after graduting from National Hangzhou School of Art, Chu Teh-Chun and his family moved south and he later taught at different schools, including National Taiwan Normal University. At that time, the art community in Taiwan was dominated by the Impressionist School which guided the most forward looking painting trends. In 1955, Chu moved permanently to France, two years later winning a silver medal at the Paris Spring Salon for Portrait of Tung Ching-chao and holding his first solo exhibition. Moreover, the artst’s embrace of Eastern Zen Buddhist “large images of no shape” breathed new life into abstract art, as seen at the 10th San Paolo Biennial (1969) where Chu’s paintings were shown in a dedicated display room and several decades of exhibitions in Luxembourg, France, Belgium etc. Chu Teh-Chun has been called “the single most successful painter at combining the fine detail of Eastern art and power of Western painting.” In 1999, Chu became a fellow of the Académie des Beaux-Arts, the first Chinese born artist to receive the honor in 200 years, enhancing the international reputation of Chinese abstract oil painting.
Eastern Poetry, Abstract Landscapes:
Fusion of Color and Artistic Conception
Despite being deeply influenced by Western expresionism, Chu Teh-Chun once said: “My abstractions are Chinese, belonging to the traditional Chinese landscapes of the Tang and Song era. The landscapes of Western painters imitate nature, whereas Chinese landscape paintings exist at a distance from reality, as a semiotic and deeper tangible nature.” In this context, it is clear that the traditional visual experience of Chinese painting and calligraphy established an early foundation for Chu’s abstract art, one that allowed him to escape the confines of representation. In addition, the depth of his background in traditional ink art and calligraphic technique enabled him to create natural scenes imbued with poetry. From 1960, Chu Teh-chun began to focus on the expressive language of lines and colors themselves, through which he elevated his abstract work to a new level. Chu’s works used monchrome backgrounds and allowed “light” to guide space, borrowing from the vividness and vitality of “grand landsapes” from the Song Dynsty to create beautiful lines rising and falling in an ordered patchwork. As a result, his powerfully expresive blocks of color display a lightness and simplicity most readily associated with waster-based media, showcasing the beauty of abstract painting form and the boundless poetry of a literati artist.
In the 1990s, Chu Teh-Chun’s works moved even closer to traditional ink art, the gradually reduction of western elements, bold brushwork and precise colors imbuing his paintings with a sense of “a great river flowing East.” At the same time, the fine strokes in detailed sections created bright colored blocks or winding lines that revealed graceful and restrained poetic sentiment. These also inform the magnificent composition of the auctioned work Expansion which marks the pinnacle of Chu’s art in this period and is an exquisite example of the artist’s skill at combining Eastern poetry and Western abstraction.
Mountains and Sea, Heaven and Earth
Through the vastness of Expansion, Chu presents viewers with a vivid portrayal of Heaven and Earth, in which the very ground seems to quake and the mountains shake. Indeed, the way in which the atmosphere seems to move in waves is reminiscent of the approach seen in The Burning of the Houses of Parliament by William Turner. There is also a sense of the colors flowing like air as in the magnificent sceneries of John Constable, while the undulating, ever changing hues and brushwork give the work a “painting-like” subjectivity, depicitng a daily scene with the solemn bearing of an historic event.
Expansion not only echoes the majesty of the towering mountain peaks and rivers in Wang Ximeng’s (1096-1119) One Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains and the tranquility of the sun, moon and stars, it also immerses the viewer in an artistic presentation akin to the cloud covered mountains tops and forests in Mi Youren’s (1074-1151) Spectacular Views of the Xiao and Xiang Rivers. The yellow brushwork at the top of the painting resembles floating clouds rolling through the mountains, while the flying-white calligraphy like technique allows the white, pink and black colors to run into each other in the sky. These highlight the same artistic charm as floating clouds and flowing water as they breathe life into a natural world in which Nature and Mankind are one.
Flowing Light, Surging Life
In Expansion, the overlapping colors of the awakening mist gives the painting the “random coloring” of a Pleinairist work, so that even with the abstract composition of the picture, viewers can feel the flow and change in light, an approach that quietly imbues the abstract work and its symbolic meaning with a sense of place. The top-down “loose-compact-loose” brushwork in the piece, creates the impression of a three sectioned composition made up of foreground, midground and background, which creates spatial rhythm in a two dimensional painting. The “surging” black and blue areas at the bottom of the painting are like a rolling storm of gloom, while the bright light at the center guides the direction of brushstrokes throughout. As a result, the limited scene encapsulates huge destructive power, like a ray of light shining through the chaos at the birth of the Universe and it is this changing light that gives viewers a taste of the wonders of Heaven and Earth.
In terms of composition and atmosphere, Expansion is also a distant echo of Chu Teh-Chun’s early “snowy mountain” themed works, in that both ingeniously combine the spirit of Chinese landscape painting and post-war abstract expressionism to showcase the brand new style embraced by the artist’s works in his later years. The burgeoning black areas around the painting create a centrosymetric composition which together with the light radiating from the center creates a scene that resembles myriad stars surrounding a moon.

Price estimate:
HKD: 9,800,000 - 15,000,000
USD: 1,256,400 - 1,923,100

Auction Result:
HKD: 11,420,000