Wei Dong

executed in 1997
signed with three seals of the artist

Plum Blossoms Gallery, Hong Kong
Jack Tilton Gallery, New York
Collection of Janice & Mickey Cartin, Hartford
Phillips de Pury, London, 18 May 2007, lot 242

Hong Kong, Plum Blossoms Gallery, Wei Dong - The Age of Innocence, 1998, pl. 41, pp. 80-81

Kuo, Jason C., Chinese Ink Painting Now, Distributed Art Publishers, New York, USA; Timezone 8, Hong Kong, China, 2010, pp.226-227

Overall in very good condition. Framed size: 78.5 x 156.5 cm; 30 7/8 x 61 5/8 in.
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Wei Dong is one of the most technically versatile contemporary Chinese artists today. The unusual juxtapositions of imagery, themes and values in his works speak to a broad audience and provide provocative commentary about a range of issues facing our contemporary society. Whether emphasizing contradictions between religion and politics, power and subversion, or China and the West, Wei manages to create a constant coherence in his paintings. 

The Old Tea House (Lot 572) was created for an exhibition titled The Age of Innocence and inspired by the 15^th century painting "Huishan Tea Party" by Wen Zhengming, currently in the National Palace Museum in Taiwan. Consistent with the original work, Wei's painting features friends meeting in the forest, listening to the old pines, and enjoying tea in a pavilion. However, Wei Dong's version adds additional figures clad in modern military uniforms, robes and gowns or others with bare breasts exposed. The painter's astonishing technical virtuosity is evident in his ink paintings, and his trademark conflation of the classical and the modern, both Chinese and Western, conjures up surreal, biting commentaries on the desire-driven modern psyche.

Born in Inner Mongolia in 1968, Wei Dong graduated with a BA in Fine Arts from Beijing's Capital Normal University and received the Best Graduate Award in 1991. The artist received numerous awards and grants including the 2005 Joan Mitchell Foundation Painting Grant and the 2004 New Jersey Art Council Art Grant. Having extensively exhibited his works internationally, Wei Dong's paintings are now featured in the Sigg Collection, Monique and Max Burger Collection, Estella Collection, Trammell Crow Museum, Denver Art Museum, Queensland Art Gallery, he Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Fukuoka Art Museum, Okinawa Prefectural Museum, Oriental Foundation, Modern Chinese Art Foundation, Canvas Foundation, and Miniature Museum of Contemporary Art.