Oil on canvas

152.4 x 127 cm. 60 × 50 in.

Stamped with one artist's seal and signed in English on lower centre

LITERATURE
2012, Fu-Sheng Ku, Eslite Gallery, Taipei, p. 28
EXHIBITED
10 Aug – 2 Sep 2012, Fu-Sheng Ku, Eslite Gallery, Taipei

PROVENANCE
Eslite Gallery, Taipei
Private Collection, Asia

This work is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity signed by the artist issued by Eslite Gallery, Taipei

Hand in Hand and Vowing for Life
Ku Fu-Sheng's Romantic Sentiments

Born in 1935 in Shanghai, Ku Fu-Sheng, a close friend of Hsien-yung Pai and the teacher of Sanmao, was an avant-garde artist in modern Taiwan. In 1954, encouraged by his mentor Chu Teh-Chun, he went to study in the Department of Fine Arts at National Taiwan Normal University. Living in the conservative 1960s, he was bold to confront issues such as the human body, desire, and humanity with strong emotional sensations. Ku Fu-Sheng joined the Fifth Month Group in 1958 and, in 1961, was the first in the Group to hold a solo exhibition. In the same year he won the honorary award of the Sao Paulo Biennale and built a reputation in the art world.

In 1961, Ku Fu-Sheng arrived in France to study art, where he experienced with producing collages. Two years later he traveled to the United States on a scholarship offered by the Art Students League of New York, and lived in Portland and Los Angeles, among other places, until his death. During the stay in the U.S., he continued his profound exploration with the body while playing with a variety of media. The artist saw the ground of his artistic production expand during his "Portland period" (1990-2002) to involve ceramics, wood, and patterned fabrics outside the use of canvas and paper. Then, in the "Los Angeles period" that lasted from 2008 to the final years of his life, he released the body from the solitary situations that he created in his early career to let feelings of warmth and expansiveness flow, producing avant-garde works that embody an Eastern aesthetics. Ku Fu-Sheng's works are in the collections of the Sunpride Foundation in Hong Kong, Taipei Fine Arts Museum, and the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana, California, among others. The autumn action will present The Two of Us (Lot 95), an oil painting with the theme of pas de deux that is representative of the "Los Angeles period" while combining Eastern and Western visual vocabularies, and Lady Arabella and Lord Ponsonby (Lot 96), a mixed-media work that emanates child-like playfulness.

A Compassionate Dance in a Dazzling World of Gold and Vermillion

Upon arriving in the U.S., inspired by the elegant and powerful postures of athletes and dancers on television, Ku Fu-Sheng created a beloved series of works that features dancers. The Two of Us in the autumn auction, created in 2009, is of the pas de deux theme: taking up the centre stage of the picture, two dancers in modern clothing share a dance under a gleaming golden pine tree in front of a vermilion pictorial ground. To execute the pine tree, Ku makes use of various tones of yellow and gold and creates a strong contrast between the light and the shadow to enhance the tree's metallic texture. In the painting, the man wears a fitted suit and his partner a black backless dress and a pair of red dancing shoes. Outstretched and dynamic, their fit and elongated limbs engage in a ballroom dance, conveying an enthusiastic and unrestrained beauty in the body language of the dance. The work combines Eastern elements of the pine and the auspicious gold and red colours with the subject of the Western ballroom dance. The work not only shows the artist's innovation with different cultural contexts but is itself filled with passion and joy as it leads the viewer into a dazzling, kaleidoscopic new world.

Companionship as the Longest Confession of Love

The sentimental Ku Fu-Sheng often took his friends and family as his painting subjects, while being greatly fond of animals. In Lady Arabella and Lord Ponsonby, two dogs, depicted vividly with graphite and acrylic paint, tamely lie on their bellies and seem to enjoy the time with their owner. The white Pekingese and beige Chinese Pastoral Dog, which are both native to China, relate to the artist's memories of his homeland. His anthropomorphic representation of the dogs' postures renders them as a lady and a gentleman, which exudes his humorous affection towards his pets and a witty reference to people in real life. Furthermore, the brown floral backdrop is printed with peonies that symbolize blooming wealth and lilies that connote longevity and life-long union, voicing words of love. In the U.S., accompanied by his sisters and friend, Hsien-yung Pai, Ku's works are tinging with warmth, just as how the sense of companionship in this work is touching people's hearts.

Price estimate:
HKD 150,000 – 200,000
USD 19,200 – 25,600