Oil on canvas

79 x 78.5 cm. 31 7/8 x 30 7/8 in.

Signed in Chinese on bottom right

LITERATURE
1991, Wang Pan-Youn Paintings, Eslite Gallery, Taipei, p.142
2018, By the Passing of a Thousand Sails —— The Paintings of Wang Pan-Youn, National Museum of History, Taipei, p.205
EXHIBITED
4 May – 1 Jul 2018, By the Passing of a Thousand Sails —— The Paintings of Wang Pan-Youn, National Museum of History, Taipei

PROVENANCE
Acquired by original collector from the artist's family
Important Private Collection, Asia

A Home Away From Home
Wang Pan-Youn's Poetic Romance

The life of Wang Pan-Youn was nothing but uneventful, but he rose above the suffering with a peace of mind and impressed the world by translating his loneliness into poetic romance. Wang was born in 1909 into a wealthy family in Jiangsu but lost his parents at a young age. He was admitted into Shanghai Fine Art School at 25 years old and influenced by the East-Meets-West trend under the mentorship of renowned artists, including Liu Haisu, Pan Tianshou and Pan Yuliang. He then drifted to Taiwan in 1949 and had since lived in Yilan for over 50 years. He co-founded with his friends Lanyang Painting Association at this second home, training a large number of painters. His artistic achievements have also won him industry recognition both at home and abroad. We this time bring three works by Wang, one rare oil painting Guishan Island (Lot 97) and two watercolour painting Rural Region in Spring (Lot 98) and Landscape (Lot 99). All of these works are exhibited in the retrospective exhibition By The Passing of A Thousand Sails: The Paintings of Wang Pan-Youn curated by the National Museum of History in 2018, stating the provenance of the works.

A Rare Guishan-themed Oil Painting

Finished in 1989, Guishan Island was originally in the hands of a private collector. It showed up in the By The Passing of A Thousand Sails: The Paintings of Wang Pan-Youn as one of the only three exhibits with the theme of Guishan Island among the 220 items. Another same-year, same-theme painting is collected by the National Museum of History. In comparison, Guishan Island is larger in size and brighter in palette. The massive expanse of space contains the artist's deep affection towards Yilan.

Poetry Arises From Solitude, Affinity Reaches to Homeland

As the landmark of Yilan, the Guishan Island was always there welcoming him back on Wang's way home. The Island was a warm reminder telling him that the home at the other end of the globe was inching close. The artist created this piece as a special token of nostalgia, taking his affinity to Yilan up a notch in his painting language.

Solitude is the essential spirit of Wang's artworks, but what underlies his creation is poetic aura. In the auctioned piece, Wang made a bold experimentation with composition by segmenting the canvas into three parts: the sky, the sea and the island. The purple-blue ocean takes up 80% of the canvas. This technique is aligned with that used in the colour field paintings created by his contemporaneous abstract expressionist Mark Rothko. The hugely disproportionate segmentation and the hard colour contrast of yellow and blue have generated a surprisingly tranquil and soothing atmosphere. Against the high-rise horizon, the Island looks like a floating berg in a secluded sphere. The sunset glow cast upon the island creates a halo of warmth and blurs the boundary between the sky and the water, inviting the viewer into the spiritual realm of the artist. Wang saw Guishan as the embodiment of his hometown, projecting his homesick feelings onto the Island in an imperceptibly powerful way.

With the Brush of Free Spirit, to Paint a Poetic Life Landscape

Different from oil color, watercolour embraces more smoothness and gentleness, which turns to be the best example of Wang Pan-Youn's pursuit of poetic beauty. In Rural Region in Spring, we see dense strokes layered a wild world for us, repeatedly yet freely. A giant sun is rising from the horizon, warming the wild silently. A gull represents as a messenger at the left upper corner, echoing the people diagonally on the bottom. The branches of the old trees also become the emotional attachment, reminding people the past days. Lu You, a famous poet of Song dynasty, once wrote, Is not the suburbs in Spring worth a tour everywhere? Wang's mindset, seeing through the cloud of chaos, expressed in the painting echoes the spirit of the poet, who looks retrospectively and forwardly, and put away the noise of the world. Artist paints with his poetic spirit, expressing his understanding about life. Multiple images indicate a multifold connotation, mirroring people's own life stories. This work is finished in 1989, once exhibited in the Wang Pan-Youn Solo Exhibition in 1992 at the Taipei Eslite Gallery. It was recently exhibited in 2018 By the Passing of a Thousand Sails —— The Paintings of Wang Pan-Youn. These exhibitions witness and record the provenance and passing of the painting.

Landscape another work from the Eslite Gallery, possesses more spirit of the traditional oriental ink painting compared with Rural Region in Spring. Wang joins the freehand brushwork of Chinese painting in the western watercolour painting, creating a subtle balance in harmony, which is shown in this work. Free strokes are well applied to present the mountains as the background, high and low, simple yet proportioned. Most of the painting is intentionally blank, similar to the traditional style of Song painting, making the watercolour as smooth and soft as the ink painting. The greenish color applied adds more serene and secluded feeling to the painting. Besides the landscape, there is a little boat embedded with his personal emotion. The boat floats to the mountain, like a leaf on the sea, resembling the floating life of Wang. Its freedom goes with loneness, the poetic scene pounds the heart of viewers silently yet mighty.

Price estimate:
HKD: 950,000 – 1,200,000
USD: 122,600 – 154,800

Auction Result:
HKD: 1,121,000