Yu Youhan

Private Collection, New York

Chang Tsong-zung, China's New Art: Post-1989, 1993, p. 11, a similar painting illustrated in color

Born in Shanghai in 1943, Yu Youhan regards himself as a “self-taught painter” with a natural affinity for drawing.  When the Cultural Revolution began, Yu was a twenty-three year old student at the Central Academy of Art and Design in Beijing, from which he graduated in 1973.  For Yu and many of his generation who lived through the Cultural Revolution, Mao’s propagandistic image remains deeply embedded, along with the experience of those years. 
Along with Li Shan and Wang Guangyi, Yu Youhan would subsequently become a leading practitioner of Political Pop, a principal avant-garde movement that emerged in the post-1989 era. Initially inspired by propaganda posters from the Cultural Revolution, during the 1980s and 90s Yu embraced diverse works by Western artists, such as Henri Matisse, Vincent van Gogh, Paul Cézanne, Richard Hamilton, and Andy Warhol. Appropriating Mao’s image, political slogans and elements from traditional Chinese folk art (decorative flower patterns and the use of bright colors), Yu’s artistic oeuvre draws upon a personal experience that reflects the changing economic, political and cultural situation since the introduction of consumerism to China. Yu’s cheerful portraits are almost anti-mythical, transforming the endlessly-repeated image of Chairman Mao from godlike icon into ordinary person – or simply decor.

In 1988, Yu painted his first Mao portrait, coupling American pop icon Whitney Houston with the Chairman.  Sotheby’s is pleased to offer two examples from this important period of Yu Youhan’s work. New Times (Lot 5) was conceived in 1992 and juxtaposes the image of Mao with two Western icons of commercial culture, pinups for the new face of Communism during the early 1990s, when consumerism swept the country.

In 1995, the fashion designer Vivienne Tam commissioned Yu Youhan to paint The Waving Mao (Lot 4). This picture is similar to a prominent work from 1990 entitled The Waving Mao, which was featured in the groundbreaking exhibition China’s New Art: Post-1989.^[i]  Both canvases (1990 and 1995) depict a waving black silhouette, undeniably Mao, adorned with flowers and set against a colorful floral background of orange and red.  The reductive Mao silhouette here appears as but one element of the overall decorative scheme. The Chinese inscription on the lower right corner of the painting reads: “Made for Madam Vivienne Tam, Yu Youhan, 1995.” 

As Edward Lucie-Smith states, “[O]ne of the fascinating aspects of successful works of art is often their ambiguity, a quality that Yu Youhan’s work possesses in full measure.  Despite their bright colours and use of popular motifs, these are not paintings that yield their full meaning immediately.  What they do is to invite us to meditate on two things: one is China’s recent history; the other is her relationship with the West. Yu Youhan was one of the first ‘western style’ painters in China to find an artistic language which was unmistakably his own.  He is likely to have an important place in histories of Chinese art.”^[ii] 

As one of the elder statesmen of Political Pop and post-89 art, Yu Youhan is also distinguished by his influential teaching career, from which he retired in 2003 after guiding generations of aspiring painters, including protégé Wang Ziwei (whose work is also offered in Sotheby’s present sale). Beyond his participation in the historic China Avant-Garde exhibition in Beijing (1989), Yu also participated in many significant exhibitions abroad, including the 46th Venice Biennale (1993) and the 22nd Sao Paulo International Biennial (1994). The active painter – a pioneer in his craft – continues to experiment with materials and methods of production from his Beijing studio.

^[i] Hanart TZ gallery in Hong Kong organized this exhibition in 1993.  The name of the exhibition was changed to “Mao Goes Pop” in 1993 when it subsequently traveled to the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney, Australia.
^[ii]  Edward Lucie-Smith, Unpublished Essay, Paris-Pékin (Paris: Chinese Century, 2002), p.234.