Oil on canvas

137 × 137 cm. 53 7/8 × 53 7/8 in.

Dated, titled and signed in English on the reverse
PROVENANCE
Louis K. Meisel Gallery, New York
Private Collection
22 Jun 1993, Sotheby's New York God's Love We Deliver Charity Auction, Lot 22
Private Collection, Asia

Note: A label of New York Louis K. Meisel Gallery is affixed on the reverse

The Eye of the Time, Embrace the Body of Freedom
The Vivid Lives in Hilo Chen's Beach

“As a man from the oriental, this is my desire to understand the world, and even see it through. Therefore, later, my realistic works are no longer about two-eyed people, but about the people and the world in his eyes.”

――Hilo Chen

As the wind of abstract art swept the world in the 1960s, in 1968, Hilo Chen, the youngest member of the Oriental Painting Society lived in New York chose to use photorealism as the cornerstone. With his Beach series published, Chen won his fame as renowned as the American photorealist master Chuck Close.

As the artist's most representative series, Beach has been featured in magazines such as Juxtapoz, Sex and the City, and American Art Collector. Chen's works have also been collected by more than 20 public and private institutions, including the Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Taipei Museum of Art, the San Jose Museum of Art, and the Saatchi Museum in London. Beach 62 completed in 1979 is a representative of the artist's Beach series that records less than 160 pieces. It is first collected by the famous Louis K.Meisel Gallery in New York and has a clear provenance since then.

Reshaping the Perspective, Blooming the “Self” of Women

Different from the “lying image” in most works of his Beach series, Beach No. 62 is an extremely bold presentation of the female body. Chen kept the figure standing straight in the centre, breaking the “perspective” of classical nude painting. The body is no longer covered or viewed from a distance yet states itself to the viewers. With the sharply zoomed-in field of vision, the woman's soft skin, the water droplets attached, and the indentation of the swimsuit are all presented realistically, showing the ultimate realistic brushwork, and creating a strong visual impact. The bronzed body with healthy beauty shows the changes in the aesthetics of the new era and the idea of “Liberate women's physical freedom.” With the anonymity, Chen broke the classical lock in the portrait painting about “Who is it?”, and conveyed the spirit of the time of the group portraits of women.

Focusing on Group of Portraits, Artist's Special Presence in Painting

The setting of the background of Beach not only shows the elements of leisure venues in the 1970s, but also inherits the popular photography colours at that time. With a colourful tone that combines nature and humanity, Chen's Beach has a special texture like the Kodak film, saturated, bright, and enthusiastic. Beachgoers wear colourful swimsuits, women set up beach chairs and parasols to enjoy sunbathing, lifeguards are sitting on the raised legs, interestingly, the man wearing sunglasses on the lower left is a self-portrait of the artist himself. Chen rarely incorporates self-portrait into the painting, which highlights the particularity of the work.

For this reason, Chen's works have not only become social records of New York in the 1970s and 1980s, but his visual codes of boldly depicting the body also transcend the limits of the times, connecting the classical with the contemporary characteristics of the new figurative presentation. Though photography is highly developed right now, the images recorded by Chen with his “eyes of the time” still have profound significance. How to express oneself, how to look, how to interpret the reality of images and the reproduction of artistic creations, and how to connect the inner body and spirit, is the inspiration left by the artist.

Price estimate:
HKD: 250,000 - 350,000
USD: 31,800 - 44,600

Auction Result:
HKD: 384,000