Yun Gee (Zhu Yuanzhi)

signed in pinyin
executed in 1940.

Collection of the artist's daughter Li-lan
Private Asian Collection

This work is overall in good condition. The canvas is varnished. There are slight wears along the borders and at the corners. There are very slight craquelures across the surface. There is no evidence of restoration under UV light.
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Composing Rhythms with Colour
The Fate of the Artist - Yun Gee

Having lived in America for a vast majority of his life, Yun Gee depicts a familiar setting in his painting Central Park (Lot 568). Upon gazing at the painting, the viewer is immediately drawn towards the central focal point of the bronzed statue of "Balto," perched upon a cluster of rocks towards the center of the canvas. This figure of "Balto" is iconic to the park as a whole, having been erected nearly 85 years ago, near the Tisch Children’s Zoo. It honors the historical sled dog that battled a blinding blizzard and traveled hundreds of miles to deliver medicine during the horrific diphtheria epidemic in Alaska. As a whole, the subjects in the piece are wholly representational, as Yun Gee also depicts the same red bridge located in Central Park. It is a known fact that the artist had a troubled life in New York, having been subjected to stereotyping in the society of the time. This sense of disillusionment with the city is thoroughly emphasized by the subdued hazy shades of auburn and grey, which the artist has used to present clear melancholic feelings. Almost autobiographical in style, Yun Gee cleverly injects his own subjective response into a thoroughly aesthetic piece. Although Central Park is, to this day, one of the most notable landmarks in Manhattan, the artist has chosen to depict a secluded setting, void of the hustle and bustle of the city. Instead, he has merely depicted a shy figure of a young girl, feeding a white pigeon in a forlorn and dejected manner. This could be as a reflection of the Great Depression, as well as of the artist’s own personal turmoil he endured at the time, which includes the separation from his wife and his poor financial status. The loose painterly style and significant expanse of shrubbery also characterizes Yun Gee’s stylistic movement from Synchromism to the School of Paris.

Man with Beard (Lot 569) is an example of Yun Gee's earlier work, exemplifying abstract motifs, which were thought to have been influenced by the artist's teacher Otis Oldfield, who often utilized a fragmented painterly style in his own work. In this painting, the artist depicts a single male figure in an abstracted style, void of naturalism and clear detail. The application of color in blocks, together with the strong bold brushstrokes exemplify typical Impressionistic and Cubist features, allowing the viewer to focus on the play of light on color. However, unlike Cubism, where the subject is normally depicted as mere objects, Yun Gee depicts a figure full of emotion through the heightened palette of vivid tones. Different shades and tones have been used to emphasize the figure's angular facial features and exaggerated elements like his bulging eyes, high cheekbones and geometrical goatee. Having been established as a portraitist of note, Yun Gee is able to portray figures in his own subjective way, and his portraits of Confucius and Lao Tzu remain masterpieces in their own right. What is so unique to Man with Beard, however, is the alternative rendering of background, which almost exudes an unfinished pallor to the canvas as a whole. The artist has employed Synchromism to heavily emphasize the contrasting tones and shades, portraying how they relate to each other within the composition. Under the watchful eye of his master, Yun Gee was taught to focus on filling the canvas with solid blocks of color. Nevertheless, in keeping true to his Chinese roots, the artist chose to incorporate the traditional Chinese element of "the ideal of void" within the background of his piece, thus creating a more explicitly poignant composition to the piece as a whole.  

Yun Gee’s slightly later work, mainly dated between the 1940s and 1950s, are less known in the market, compared to his earlier pieces. Around this time, the artist began developing his Nude series, with Girl Carrying a Ball (Lot 570) being one of the primary pieces in the collection. As a result of poor financial support, Yun Gee was unable to hire proper female models, forcing him to use his own figure as a study for the nude portraits. As a whole, there are dominant hues of yellow, which have been interpreted as an indication of the artist’s optimism towards his artistic career. This painting was completed as the artist approached the age of fifty in 1952,  and the dense blue tones infused with a disconsolate air lend the composition a mysterious and ethereal atmosphere, interjected with abstracted forms and certain cubist features. The emerging form of the ball from a haze of cerulean hues lend a dream-like quality to the canvas, and reflect the artist’s emotional state at a time of severe unrest in both his personal and artistic career.