Oil on canvas

130 x 81 cm.51 1/8 x 31 7/8 in.

Signed in Chinese and English on lower right; Signed in Chinese and Pinyin, dated “1959” and titled “No.16” on the reverse.
LITERATURE De Sarthe Gallery, Hong Kong, China, CHU TEH-CHUN, 2012, p18-19.
EXHIBITED Hong Kong, De Sarthe Gallery, Chu Teh-Chun: Nature in Abstraction, Oct 5- Nov 3, 2012.
PROVENANCE Galerie H.Le Gendre, Paris.
Paris Private Collection.
Bruun Rasmussen. Bredgade Copenhagen, Denmark.
Paris, Private Collection.
NOTE This work is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity signed by the artist.
Chu Teh-Chun
1920-2014
“Despite I had been living abroad, what has always guided me in behavior and relationship with others is the spirit of Chinese culture that I have comprehended when I was young.”—— Chu The-Chun

In 1955, 34-year-old Chu Teh-Chun did not hesitate to put down his established reputation at homeland and came to the forefront of art at that time, Paris, for further study. At the beginning when Chu Teh-Chun just arrived in Paris, it was the period dominated by trend of abstractionism, and French Art Informel and American Abstract Expressionism Art had become worldwide art trends. At this time, abstract painting had undergone a 40-year development, from Kandinsky’s hot abstract to Mondrian’s cold abstract, and then to Delaunay’s color abstract, Malevich’s supremacist, up to the lyrical abstraction trend developed to peak at that time. However, all of these were strange to Chu Teh-Chun, faced with artistic atmosphere totally different from that in homeland made him whom first came to Paris feel the huge differences between Eastern and Western arts, and Chu Teh-Chun had quickly put himself into this wave of surging tides after some trial and error and exploration.

In May 1956, the First Nicolas de Staël’s Anniversary Retrospective Exhibition after his pass-away held in Modern Art Museum of the City of Paris became an important turning point in Chu Teh-Chun’s art career. Staël’s keen painting sense, freely released painting attitude, rich pictures with transparent variations, as well as unrestrained imagination in his later works deeply impressed Chu Teh-Chun, in the face of his works Chu Teh-Chun was suddenly enlightened for what the topic of “abstract” is.

In 1958, Chu Teh-Chun held his first solo exhibition in Paris Ou Bawei Gallery and was critically acclaimed, and then he signed a contract with H. Le Gendre Gallery and began to establish a foothold in Paris’s avant-garde style painting world. By 1959, Chu Teh-Chun’s living in Paris had been gradually stabilized, so he moved out of hotel into an apartment located at Meinimengdum Street in East 20th Zone, his art creation had since ushered a new peak, and his “Composition Series” stepped into mature period right at this time. Chu Teh-Chun’s earlier Composition Series is an abstract evolution conducted on the basis of landscape works of expressionism, and the adopted strong calligraphic lines in his works inspired by Nicolas de Staël constitute the most significant characteristic of picture in this period, the beating but warm rhythm is the main theme, in the form of picture format he prefers narrow upright composition, this work “Composition No. 16” is the representative work of this period. “Composition No. 16” symbolizes the artist’s aura initially burst out after receiving the collision of Chinese and Western cultures in a foreign land, showing the vigorous power and passionate excitement during his flourishing talent period as well as the high spirituality with slight bitterness due to thinking about change. Living in a foreign land Chu Teh-Chun deeply appreciated the “un-consulted coincidence” between the infinite abstraction implied in ink painting and the lyrical abstraction contained in abstract art.
In “Composition No. 16”, he tried to create abstract painting with techniques used by Shi Tao when painting shallows and aquatic weeds, those random black lines and dryly wiped gray effects show out the fun of ink painting and writing. These can be said the seeds sown by Chu Teh-Chun himself when he sketching from nature and perceiving the changes of mountains, rivers and clouds in Taiwan’s Eight Immortals Mountain, and the Chinese genes flowing in his blood and mind (early memories, learning and studying calligraphy, Tang dynasty poems and Song dynasty lyrics since childhood, as well as the universe concept of space in Chinese landscape painting) always stimulated his inspiration from time to time, plus that his profound accumulation and precipitation of Chinese culture made him more consciously use Western eye to express Eastern wisdom, so at last all of these had collectively made his art works come to the fore in Paris’s wave of Art Informel.

In “Composition No. 16,” We seems feel that Chu Teh-Chun implicitly presents the integrated beauty combination of Winter scenes in Paris and canyons and falls in Taiwan’s Eight Immortals Mountain in his memory, under the reflection and silhouetting of ink black, and faint dark red and brown yellow in-between taupe brown and elegant milky white, the overlappingly laid out warm and cold colorings rotate and gallop on the picture through the indulgent and strongly running strokes of the artist, so various forms are smartly staggered, just like the vibration, swirling and rotation of water vapors when flowing spring water in canyon cliff cutting across stone walls; also like Paris winter, the cold buildings on both sides mutually overlap, revealing yellowish glow, and entraining the street on center of the picture to extend to the distant and meander a long desolateness and bewildering. In the picture, the expression of light is different from the large blooming in his later works, but rather a delicate choreography of block structure and a joint combination more focused on the interleaving of points, lines and surfaces, so it can be seen Chu Teh-Chun’s research results before expressing light for large space, while the lyrical and profound artistic conception sprayed by his thick calligraphical stroke intention makes “Composition No. 16” produce a mystery sense of cross-mapping of actuality and virtuality, and this compact structural nature and deep and mysterious atmosphere is exactly the spirit of Chu Teh-Chun’s early art, highlighting the valuable and rare academic significance of this work. And this piece of lyrical abstract work with rich changes of rhythm ups and downs, sharp contrasts, and delicate choreography also marks the touching symphony made by Chu Teh-Chun in his beginning stage of staying in France and after he deeply experienced the collision of two major cultures of the East and the West.

As a typical early painting of Chu Teh-Chun, “Composition No. 16” has been collected by major French collectors and has been attached with Chu Teh-Chun’s 2011 autographed certificate, besides, it is worth mentioning that “Composition No. 16” initially comes from the French gallery (H. Le Gendre Gallery) which first signed a agent contract with Chu Teh-Chun, so it can be said that this piece of work has a substantial rich source. In addition, the hand-painted artwork of “Composition No. 16” has also been included in the commemorative picture album of “Chu Teh-Chun’s Eighty-eight Retrospective Exhibition” hosted and compiled by the National Museum of History in Taipei. In his early years of art creation, in order to record a series of works after completion, Chu Teh-Chun always would use watercolor paints to draw a small size hand-painted artwork for each original work, so during his early art creation period he had completed a series of valuable hand-painted artworks, these artworks also become the important evidence of Chu Teh-Chun’s early works, and the watercolor artwork of “Composition No. 16” is exactly included within it, this indirectly shows the undisputed identity and value of this piece of work.

Price estimate:
HKD：5,000,000 - 8,000,000
USD：645,200 - 1,032,300

Auction Result:
HKD: 9,430,000