Tseng Yuho (Zeng Youhe)

executed in 1980
signed in Chinese and marked with one seal of the artist

Acquired directly from the artist
Honolulu Private Collection

Overall in good condition. There are minor paper losses at the bottom left corner of the artwork. Overall framed dimensions: 181.7 by 151.5 cm; 71½ by 59⅝ in.
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Tseng Yuho was one of the first women to enter Furen University and graduated from the Arts Department in 1942. Her marriage to the University's resident German-born art historian, Gustav Ecke was encouraged by shared passion for the arts, literature, culture and knowledge, with a rooted yearning to use their talents for education and change.  "I know my marriage was unusual, but as an independent woman I was determined to be constructive and useful to world civilization and not be crushed by the destruction of the war."¹ Her artistic practice developed in the mid-1940s in Beijing until the couple settled in Honolulu, Hawaii in 1949. Throughout her career, she held teaching positions at the University of Hawaii as a professor of Chinese art history and painting. She also authored several treatises on the art of Chinese painting and calligraphy in English that have influenced generations of artists and students alike.  

The Fishpond, Hawaii-Kai was commissioned by friends of the artist in Honolulu who have enjoyed the painting in their home for decades up to this present sale. Fishponds in Hawaii have great cultural significance of bringing communities together and are recognized as the most advanced form of aquaculture among indigenous Pacific island cultures. As one of the last historic ponds in the Hawaiian islands, transformed with the development of the Hawaii Kai residential community where she lived, Tseng Yuho pays tribute to the local history as she applies a contemporary Chinese interpretation of the island landscape depicting mountains surrounding a fishpond connected to the ocean.

Beneath the surface of visual abstraction, there is always a sense of deep antiquity present in Tseng's works. Similar to a later painting sold in these rooms titled Distant Time (1991), The Fishpond (1980) applies a Chinese painting vantage point to the landscape through the birds-eye perspective from the ocean below looking towards the mountains above. A sense of transcendence is achieved from this perspective, in combination with the geometric grid patterns underpinning the mountains and vertical lines of trees painted on the surface. Tseng achieves this effect with her distinctive dsui collage painting of applied ink, acrylic and aluminum to the paper surface. The final work is mounted as a diptych that is part of the artist's experimentation with multiple paneled works in the 1980s and 1990s—inspired from the earlier Irregular Polygon series by American painter Frank Stella. As an artist and scholar, Tseng Yuho transcends cultural boundaries. Disciplined in classical Chinese painting and calligraphy, as well as Western realism and color field techniques, her paintings are a legacy of innovation in modern Chinese painting.

¹ “An Interview with Tseng Yuho,” Orientations, 2000, p. 74