Oil on canvas

97×130 cm. 38 1/4×51 1/8 in.

Signed in Chinese and dated on bottom right; titled and signed in Chinese on the reverse

LITERATURE
1993, Inaugural Exhibition: Contemporary Paintings by 18 Artists, Schoeni Art Gallery Ltd., Hong Kong, p. 13
1997, Chinese Modern Art: Oil Paintings, Volume 4, Chinese Modern Art Collection Editorial Committee, Tianjin People's Fine Arts Publishing House, cover page and p. 76
EXHIBITED
15 Mar – 15 Apr 1993, Inaugural Exhibition: Contemporary Paintings by 18 Artists, Schoeni Art Gallery Ltd., Hong Kong

PROVENANCE
Schoeni Art Gallery, Hong Kong
1 May 1994, Christie's Hong Kong Spring Auction, Lot 25
Acquired directly by present private Asian collector from the above

Note: A label of Hong Kong Schoeni Art Gallery is affixed on the reverse

Echoes of the Magnificent Natural Spirit
Hong Ling's Emotionally Laden Landscape

In 1987, after graduating from the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, Hong Ling escaped the hustle and bustle of the world and built a studio on Huangshan in the early 1990s. This makes him the only Chinese painter born in the 1950s who became a mountain dweller. He chose to lead a simple life in the woods, where he ultimately transformed into an artist who best represented the "spirit of contemporary landscape painting". Hong Ling has long received local and international attention. He represented China twice at the Venice Biennale in 1997 and 2011. In 2015, Hong Ling: A Retrospective opened in the National Art Museum and the Palace Museum in Beijing. From 2016 to 2017, he launched a major exhibition that toured Europe, showing at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin, and the Museum of East Asian Art in Bath, UK. In 2024, he held a solo show at the Aurora Art Centre in Shanghai.

In the 2024 Autumn Auction, China Guardian HK set a new world record for Hong Ling's auction sales. The Spring Auction presents his outstanding work, Infinitely Green. In 1998, an art committee headed by Ai Zhongxin selected the painting from more than one hundred masterpieces by renowned artists to be the cover of The Complete Collection of Modern Chinese Fine Arts: Oil Paintings Vol. 4.

World Created Under a Brush, Silent Beauty Between Heaven and Earth

The artist paints the foreground in a way that the oil embodies the intensity and vigour of dry brush in ink painting: compact ink drops and strokes grant form to the robust winter trees, which exude charm and vitality with the remaining branches withering in the cold. In the background are boundless mountain ranges painted in black and blue. Bold and majestic, these mountains demonstrate the artist's love for the landscape, as well as his reverent homage to this spiritual shrine for the Chinese literati.

Adding to this ink-coloured world, using pale blue pigment, Hong Ling paints a river that flows in the misty morning like a silver band. Furthermore, he employs a rich combination of reds and greens to depict the fertile fields in the foreground, bringing life to the painting. The thick mist in the valley shrouds the landscape in a veil of mystery, accentuating the solemn winter atmosphere. On the river bank, some scattered houses are awakening in the fog; in the river, there is a single rowboat on which a fisherman works peacefully, revealing the harmonious coexistence of humans and nature. Amidst the mountains and waters, Hong Ling searches for the expressions and forces of nature and recreates its heart-racing beauty in the realm of art.

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