Li Huayi

executed in 1989
signed in Chinese and marked with two seals of the artist

Acquired directly from the artist
Lo Shan Tang, Hong Kong

Overall in good condition. Overall framed dimensions: 124.6 by 83.6 cm; 49⅛ by 32⅞ in.
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From the age of six, Li Huayi received an unusually wide-ranging art education that has bridged Chinese ink painting, western oil painting, and the observation of antiquities and nature. His first teacher was the son of the great Shanghai School master Wang Zhen (Yiting, 1867-1938); as a youth he studied Western art with the Belgian Royal Academy-trained painter Zhang Chongren (1907-1998). During the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) Li Huayi acquired a grounding in Russian realist techniques as he adapted his training to produce the socialist realist propaganda images demanded at the time. Between the end of the Cultural Revolution and his 1982 move to San Francisco, Li travelled to China’s famous mountains and to the Buddhist caves of Dunhuang, as a means of rejuvenating his art through the inspiration of natural beauty. His Master of Fine Arts degree from the Academy of Art in San Francisco represents a formal training in Western art, after which he returned to nature and Chinese painting, re-visiting China’s mountains and the iconic paintings at the National Palace Museum in Taipei. With such a varied background, and driven by an urge for personal cultivation, Li Huayi has arrived at a unique and deliberate synthesis of east and west in his art.

It is extremely rare to find Li's paintings from the 1980s. The present lots are part of a series titled Elements created in his early years after moving to the United States when he experimented with large areas of ink to create abstract forms and explore Western painting composition styles. In contrast to the fluid ink wash, he adds fine details such as figures or components from Han pottery, Bronze Age scripts, and clements from ancient carvings and lacquerware.  The Elements series reveals Li's eclectic exploration of ancient motifs and personal expression through collage and various ink painting techniques. In the present works  (Lots 557, 558, and 559), the archaic inscriptions are applied as a collage of torn excerpts from chapters of the Strategies of the Warring States, a historic compilation of materials from the 3rd to 1st centuries BCE that document the strategic allegiance between the two largest states Qin and Qi. The text reveals the historical and social tendencies of the period in a similar way that Li's paintings reveal a personal characteristic of his contemporary painting exploration: a fusion of opposing styles.

In a 2003 conversation with the Asian Art Museum curator Michael Knight, Li describes three influences of the 20th century that greatly influenced his cultivation of a personal artistic style, all of which seem evident in these early works. The first is the literati tradition of the scholar-elite, the second is the 'big brush' tradition of the Shanghai school, and the third is a painting and radical composition styles introduced from the West.¹ Here in his paintings, Li demonstrates a cultivated appreciation for history, powerful brushwork that alludes to the eccentric styles and innovation cultivated in the 20th century, and an accomplished sense of composition that invites viewers into the painting rather than demanding an omni-perspective or awe-inspiring position typical of traditional Chinese landscape paintings. 

Li's love for traditional painting, knowledge of history and admiration of cultural artefacts are evident in these poetic collage works, whose structure and method of creation later shifted to his later, more classically inspired style of landscape painting. The present work Pines in Pureland Mist (Lot 513) is an iconic image of Li's landscapes that draw upon the monumentalism of Northern Song (960 - 1127) painting and the composition of Western modernism. Observing both art and nature, his painting features pine trees enshrouded by sun-lit mist winding through majestic cliff faces of an imaginary realm. Beginning with a light ink wash, Li builds upon his image from resulting areas of light and dark to form an overall landscape composition, reserving bare or lightly washed areas for mist and water. Li's synthesis of styles is achieved through fastidiously rendered brushstrokes and a unique sense of composition that is inspired by the past and wholly his own.

“While I was studying at the Academy of Art, I continued to work with abstract forms in ink, at times combining them with collage. But, in part because I was in the United States, I began to think that more new and interesting things could be done in traditional Chiense styles, so I began to incorporate elements from traditional Chinese arts in my own works. Tradition is the spiritual core of every form of Chinese art – porcelain, pottery, rubbings, carvings, everything. But each of these arts also contains an abstract side.…

…Structurally, I have continued working in this way. If you look at one of my abstract paintings from that period and one of the landscapes I am doing today, you will see that I am using similar overall compositional structures and that I have treated the large areas of ink in much the same way. These experiments were valuable for developing this part of my vocabulary.” – Li Huayi, 2003²

¹ Knight, Michael. The Monumental Landscapes of Li Huayi, Asian Art Museum, 2003, p. 2
² Ibid., p. 50