Oil on canvas

91.4×71 cm. 36×28 in.

Signed in English on bottom right

LITERATURE
1992, The Art of Yun Gee, Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taipei, p.123
2008, Experiences of Passage: The Paintings of Yun Gee and Li-lan, University of Washington Press, Seattle and London, p. 85
2014, World Famous Artists: Yungee Chu, Hebei Publishing Media Group, Shijiazhuang, p. 63
EXHIBITED
4 Oct – 3 Dec 1944, Portrait of America, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
15 Dec 1944 – 15 Jan 1945, Portrait of America, Springfield Museum of Fine Arts, Springfield, Massachusetts
1 Feb – 4 Mar 1945, Portrait of America, Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh
25 Mar – 14 Jun 1992, The Art of Yun Gee, Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taipei
24 Nov 2017 – 28 Jan 2018, Art Without Borders: Yun Gee and Li-Lan Duo Exhibition, Tina Keng Gallery, Taipei

PROVENANCE
Original Collection of artist's daughter Li-lan
Tina Keng Gallery, Taipei
Acquired directly by present important private Asian collector from the above

This work is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity issued by Tina Keng Gallery, Taipei

Facing the Sun and Dancing, Leading an Era
Monumental Work to Honour and Dreams in the Life of Yun Gee

"Wine makes one wise,
rolling as a wheel,
rocking from left to right,
never drifting, neither ending;
as clever as Solomon's hand
When one looks where the skyline strips along,
at the very top of the Empire State,
it stirs awhile leaving white marks, like rainbows.
One wanders to the top strolls but the foot is still.
Then I was on a ship.
It moved, too,
Passing through water with streaks……"
—Aboard for New York by Yun Gee

In 1921, Yun Gee, born in Guangdong Province, China, boarded a steamboat to the United States. Although anti-Chinese sentiment was particularly severe in the US at that time, Yun used his extraordinary talent in multiple fields, including painting, drama, music, chess etc. to showcase his many attainments. Moreover, he also employed the unique, and personally developed theory of "Diamondism" and served as a model "Chinese modernist pioneer." Today, many of his works have been collected by internationally renowned museums and art institutions such as the Centre National d'art et de Culture Georges-Pompidou, the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington D.C., Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Oakland Museum of California, and Taipei Fine Arts Museum, an unparalleled degree of success for a Chinese art pioneer in the US.

New York, New York!
Great Ambition and a Personal Declaration of Independence

For the duration of his artistic career, Yun Gee lived longest in New York and the city had an unparalleled impact on both his artistic development and life. It was there that he experienced the "roaring 20s" and witnessed a burgeoning era of unprecedented modernization, with the flourishing of industrial and technological power, the rise of consumerism and wave after wave of artistic ideas. Indeed, these events deeply inspired Yun's desire to see his great plans realized. In the 1930s, the artist established a reputation in the US, from 1931 taking part in exhibitions at Brooklyn Museum of Art and Grand Central Palace, while also establishing the "Modern Art Institute." In 1932, Yun also completed the epic Wheels: Industrial New York, which was displayed at an exhibition of murals by the new head of the New York Museum of Modern Art. Other artists showing works at the event included the renowned Georgia Totto O'Keeffe. Moreover, Yun Gee was described by a noted art critic as: "one of the four most outstanding artists at the exhibition," which attracted much attention.

In 1940, Yun once again returned from Paris to New York, at a time when the bustling metropolis with all its opportunities and challenges remained at the centre of his paintings, and was set to replace Paris as the global art centre in the 1940s and 1950s. After returning to the US, the artist immediately held an exhibition of nearly 100 works at Temple's Exhibition Galleries and issued his "Diamondism" treatise which expounded on his artistic philosophy, while proactively participating in numerous large exhibitions and creating murals. He even taught painting at the Museum of the City of New York, which resulted in the third peak of his artistic career. It was against this backdrop that in 1943, Yun Gee produced Here's New York! in which he presented a scene of great prosperity that simultaneously reflected the great ambition in his heart.

Structure from Prosperous Times,
The Roaring Wheel of Time

Scenes of New York served as a classic motif in the creative work of Yun Gee, including a series of paintings on Central Park, Broadway and various cityscapes. However, it was his depiction of the most modern feature of New York located at the centre of the city, in the form of the iconic Skyscraper series, that attracted most attention and admiration. Throughout his life, Yun produced six oil paintings on this motif, with the piece auctioned on this occasion Here's New York the only one to be completed in the 1940s and the second largest of the six.

In terms of structure, the work adopts a multi perspective approach and constructs a multilayered space. The imposing Manhattan Bridge on the left of the longitudinal plane serves as a visual guide point, heading at an angle directly into the city buildings on the right of the work. In this way, the artist takes the independent bridge and the row-upon-row of buildings and constructs the first layer of contrast. Moreover, the net-like structure made out of the bridge's suspension cables and the window panes of the buildings creates an ingenious echo that "geometrically" highlights the advanced technology of the industrial age.

One World,
Reverberating City Pulse

On the horizontal axis the space is divided into three layers representing foreground, midground and distance, detailing the sky, ground and people, with clear layering. If we look more closely, the different sized towering skyscrapers appear to represent rising and falling musical notes, exciting the pulse of the city. At the same time, this also highlights the ever-changing height of the horizon, showcasing an era in which mankind is ever racing forward. Steamboats near and far, head in different directions ingeniously ensuring viewers follow the meanderings of the boats. If we pull out further the spatial sense is expanded to include the top, bottom, left and right sides of the painting. In addition, Yun Gee uses a clear red arc that infers the direction of the two boats in the lower left outer edge of the work, as if deliberately connected to the curvature of the planet's surface, an allusion to an era of globalization. The artist also ensures the journey of the boats runs parallel to the curved platform on which the two figures are stood, creating internal and external spaces that reflect each other. In this way, a perfect harmony is established between shipping developments in the distance, the city buildings in the mid-ground and the beautiful life of the couple in the foreground.

Integrating East and West
Majesty and Imagination at the Centre of the World

This work fully displays the classic majestic compositions embraced by Yun Gee throughout his life and how his inspiration and genius were based on efforts to integrate and remake Eastern and Western aesthetics. From the East he borrowed from the vertical landscape composition Two Worlds Divided by One River by Ni Zan (1301-1374) in the Yuan Dynasty to show the two sides of the Manhattan Bridge. Moreover, the large foreground, relatively smaller distance and geometric layered rising composition are reminiscent of Paul Cézanne's Montagne Sainte-Victoire, with its rich cubist vocabulary. The combination of Eastern and Western viewpoints and innovative reworking can be clearly seen in Here's New York from outside in, with the work detailing the three spatial layers of nature, industry and life, constructing through realist powers of imagination this image of a prosperous and flourishing New York City.

City of Colour,
Neon Coloured Rhyme of the Modern Age

In terms of colour, Here's New York was the artist's second lyrical expression in his "New York period," and mainly employs the primary colours "red, yellow and blue," from the Prussian blue of the sky and river to the yellow of the daybreak on the horizon and the vermillion of the boat's ocean bound route. At the same time as these colours are saturated and blossom, they are also structurally complementary and blend together perfectly.

At the centre on the right side of the painting there is a bar-like structure of high-rise buildings, with Yun Gee employing long narrow blocks of colour to achieve a layered transition in the colour scale, with the Empire State building and the Chrysler building, the highest points on the horizon, a golden-yellow hue. This highlights their imposing nature as they reach into the sky, while the skyscrapers around them are depicted in orange-yellow, black-green, violet, pink and beige, as a way of noting the "Art Deco" style and neon lights popular with buildings in New York at that time. In this way, an exquisite and magical city with an almost science fiction feel to it takes shape in the painting. This not only reflects what Yun learned about using primary colours from his many years researching "Synchromism," in terms of form it is also deeply imbued with the idea of "revealing inner information about the object depicted – the fundamental thing about life substance and spirit," which is central to the artist's Diamondism theory.

My Lover and I
Uniquely Autobiographical, Free Spirit Facing the Sun and Dancing

In the foreground a young couple dance as if in the Hollywood movie La la land, while making classical hand movements associated with Central American tap dance, as they greet the morning sunlight dancing. Broadway rose to prominence in the 1940s, resulting in the broadcasting of American tap-dancing performances into people's homes. The brisk rhythm, changing dance postures and energetic American style, not only helped to ease the tense atmosphere of wartime but also became a spiritual symbol of "beauty and freedom." In that context, the people portrayed in the painting undoubtedly reflect the spirit and pursuits of the time.

In the year before this work was painted Yun Gee married his lover of seven years Helen Wimmer and they had a daughter, Li-lan, one year later. The blond-haired woman wearing a green coat and blue skirt and the man dressed in a suit in the painting, could represent Yun and his wife. The way in which they stare at each other affectionately reflects the depth of their feelings, as they dance and look to a future of love and wonder. It is here that the artist naturally reveals the passion he feels for his wife, infusing the scene with the free spirit associated with tap dancing, which imbues the work a special meaning informed by ideals and its autobiographical nature.

Praying for Peace,
Angel of Water, Humanism- True Meaning of the Times

In addition, Yun purposefully uses a large number of rich details to highlight the unique changes in New York during the 1940s. We can see the US flag fluttering in the wind alluding to patriotism during WWII, while there is also a newly built Red Cross Nursing Centre, a church and large number of doves in the distance. Moreover, "the angel of water" statue with its reputed healing powers on top of the building on the far right of the work, speaks to a desire for peace. As such, this piece is a testament not only to Yun Gee's hopes for a wonderful future for New York, it also shows how a long-time Chinese artist resident in the US painted an iconic image of the country for the ages, how he expresses his humanism through art and a moving spirit that prays for the whole world.

Success After a Long Period of Practice
Important Work from an Award-winning Touring Exhibition

Other than the importance inherent in the meaning of the work, Here's New York was also once a major exhibition piece at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, indicating its incomparable significance as a milestone in the artist's creative work in the 1940s. Two years after the painting was completed, Yun submitted it to the "Portrait of America" competition open to artists across the United States and of the 5,000 painting submissions it became one of only 150 chosen and the only one by a Chinese artist. At a time when racism was so widespread in the US, that represented an extremely important affirmation of the artist's talent and was a great honour.

This work was also part of a touring exhibition in 1944-1945 and was displayed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Springfield Museum of Fine Arts in Massachusetts and Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh. This honour was reported in the Shanghai Evening Post and Mercury on October 20, 1944, informing its Chinese audience of Yun Gee's success in the West. Without doubt, Here's New York was a work of exceptional importance in the artist's life, comparable to that of Wheels: Industrial New York. Indeed, the two paintings could even be called sister pieces, signifying Yun's life from the 1930s to the 1940s and outstanding achievements after living in New York for more than a decade.

"Every sincere painting tries to find an adequate expression of its time, in expressing how people look at things and at what." As Yun Gee himself observed, Here's New York is imbued with his sincere observations of New York and the time. Indeed, the work's honest depiction of the yearning and strength with which the city filled him is a testament to the beauty and imagination with which he fills the city, and reflects a life of honour and dreams as he shouts at the top of his lungs "This is New York! It is our future! It is our time!"

Price estimate:
HKD 6,000,000 – 8,000,000
USD 769,200 – 1,025,600

Auction Result:
HKD: 7,170,000