Wang Huaiqing

Signed in Chinese (lower right)
Executed in 1999
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Private Asian Collection

Wang Huaiqing, Beijing, Wang Huaiqing Publishing, p. 48 

Overall in satisfactory condition. There is craquelure on the surface of the painting but it is in a stable condition.
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The year 1990 can be seen as the most important turning point in Wang Huaiqing's career.  At this time, his focus on his home in Jiangnan turned to classical Ming Dynasty furniture, and as this subject matter took the lead role in his oeuvre the artist reached new heights in his work.  This work Chair and Chair was completed in 1999 and is a brilliant work that exemplifies the artist at a mature stage in his career.

In this work, four Ming Dynasty chairs stretch across the canvas, piling up against one another from the upper left to the lower right.  From the outlines of the chairs and their composition, one can see that the chairs are somewhat weak, but from the determination of the strong black lines the viewer sees that they are attempting to stand strong.  Despite this, these chairs are in fact away from the calm home in which they belong; they seem uncomfortable and displaced as they search for a place to support themselves in the space of the canvas.  Wang Huaiqing saw these chairs in Beijing's antique furniture distribution centre.  He says:

"They are pieces of furniture with no home, but when you look at them carefully, their parts, their postures and their limbs, you can see the dignity and brilliance of their past, but their souls do not know how to continue to engage."[1]

The juxtaposition of these two conflicting ideas and the complexity of these feelings are conveyed in Chair and Chair.  In the thick monochrome background of the canvas the artist has applied multiple layers of rich texture as if to express the traces of dynastical change or the passing of daylight which has then left its sediment on the surface of the canvas.  The white directional lines juxtaposed with the black lines of the chairs create spaces in which to question what is true and what is false, hinting at the meaning of the stretches of space in between.

Wang Huaiqing uses his paintbrush to express the cultural phenomenon of China's search for modernism.  In this new era of pursuit of all things new and fast, he perseveres in the careful observation of those things that are being gradually abandoned; forgotten old things, old-fashioned buildings, the knowledge of China's ancestors, symbols of the refined scholars and the style and the spirit of Ming Dynasty furniture are all carefully preserved in his brush.  Even in the silence of this loss, a new soul has entered, in no way concealing the artist's wish to cherish the memories of and contemplate upon the knowledge of his ancestors and traditional culture.

[1], Art Investment (Oil Painters. Wang Huaiqing: Finding Home), interview transcription, China Central Television, July 24^th, 2007