Only Chinese version is available
Victoria Harbour
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Artist
Wu Guanzhong
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Year
2002
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Media
Marker and watercolour on paper
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Dimensions
36 x 57 cm
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Museum No.
FA2002.0019
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Artist Bio
Wu Guanzhong (1919-2010) was a master painter of the twentieth century in the Chinese and international art circles. Born in Yixing, Jiangsu province, he was admitted to the National Arts Academy of Hangzhou as a young man where he learnt from Lin Fengmian and Pan Tianshou. In 1947, he was the recipient of a national scholarship that put him on the road of further studies in France. His travel companion to France was the sculptor Xiong Bingming. In 1950, Wu Guanzhong decided to return to China through Hong Kong. Since then, he taught at the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Tsinghua University, Beijing Academy of Fine Arts and Central Academy of Fine Arts and Crafts respectively. During the Cultural Revolution, Wu was sent to the farmland of Hebei province for hard labour, yet he persisted in painting throughout the days of hardship. He first started painting with oil and then moved on to ink, searching for a way to fuse Eastern and Western art. His works bring together the aesthetics of traditional Chinese ink and modern Western art, pioneering the unique “Wu studio style” and endowing us with a wealth of great classics.
Wu Guanzhong had an enduring connection with Hong Kong. He visited Hong Kong on many occasions, such as hosting art exhibitions and attending academic seminars and talks by invitation. He made acquaintance with many members of the art circles. He also did sketching on the streets in Hong Kong, and the city is the subject of many of his paintings. In 2002, Wu Guanzhong gave an unprecedented demonstration of landscape sketching at the Hong Kong Museum of Art. Unperturbed by bad weather, he captured the Victoria Harbour on paper in the rain. The occasion became a favourite tale of the local art circle. Wu highly rated Hong Kong’s cultural environment, asserting that Hong Kong was a place of fair and equitable systems where people made practical efforts and valued truth. To him, Hong Kong was a confluence where he could “see both the East and the West at the same time”. It is a quality that can also be found in his art creations.
Wu Guanzhong made it clear that he would leave his best works to the nation and the people. He made several donations of artworks to public museums both in China and overseas during his lifetime. Over the years, he and his family made many donations to the Hong Kong Museum of Art, making up a huge collection of over 450 items. Together with two other paintings acquired earlier and donation from private collector, the Museum now boasts the largest and most diverse collection of works of Wu Guanzhong, as well as one of the key international centres for modern Chinese painting collection and research in the world.
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Description
During the exhibition “Wu Guanzhong: A Retrospective” in 2002, Wu Guanzhong gave his first ever live sketching demonstration at the Hong Kong Museum of Art. Sketching the Victoria Harbour in the rain, this occasion became a favourite tale of the local art circle.
From the artist’s writings, we can know how he felt about that event. He recalled, “Responding to great public demand, the Museum of Art consulted me about the possibility of performing a public sketching demonstration. I do not like to paint in front of the public, nor have I ever done any demonstration because it is impossible to get into the mood when it is a show. However, they explained that painters today seldom do sketching and young artists do not know where to start. As I have been sketching all my life, they hope people would not miss this only opportunity and asked me to encourage the younger generation. Unable to refuse the host’s kind intention and the public’s enthusiasm, I agreed to provide a “service” of demonstrating sketching for once. Since it’s a service, the outcome does not matter. They were prepared to record the whole sketching process, from my first stroke on paper to the last, which would be put into the archive. I picked Victoria Harbour as the subject, which I would sketch on the podium of the Museum… On the day of demonstration, the lobby was packed with people. Alas! There was heavy fog and visibility was down to fifty metres. All the skyscrapers around Victoria Harbour disappeared in the illusory space of mist and clouds. The fog did not clear up and the audience was getting impatient. I did not want to disappoint the crowd, so I portrayed the buildings and ferries in the harbour by memory. How I composed the buildings, my sequence of strokes as well as the control and balance of strokes might serve as a reference to some people. Yet sketching is not about copying, it’s the vitality that is being sketched, a vitality that is open to interpretation.”
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—Collection of Hong Kong Museum of Art, donated by Mr Wu Guanzhong and his family
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