Lot 818
  • 818

Tseng Yuho (Zeng Youhe)

Estimate
280,000 - 350,000 HKD
bidding is closed

Description

  • Tseng Yuho (Zeng Youhe)
  • Hawaii Sunset
  • ink and acrylic on paper mounted on board, framed
  • 109 by 65.5 cm; 43 by 25¾ in.
painted in 1957
signed in Chinese and marked with two seals of the artist

Provenance

Hanart TZ Gallery, Hong Kong
Important Private Asian Collection

Exhibited

China, Shanghai, Shanghai Museum of Modern Art in coordination with Hanart TZ Gallery, Hong Kong, Dsui Paintings by Tseng Yuho: A Retrospective Exhibition, 20 - 30 April, 1992, p.52; China, Beijing, The China Art Museum, 5 - 9 May, 1992; Taiwan, Taipei, Taipei Fine Arts Museum, 30 August - 27 September, 1992; Hong Kong, Hong Kong Arts Centre, 11 - 20 October, 1992; Singapore, National Museum of Singapore, 3 - 15 March, 1993, p. 52 

Condition

Overall in very good condition. Framed without acrylic: 115 by 71 cm.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Catalogue Note

During the 1950s and 1960s, Tseng Yuho built upon her formal artistic training with personal lessons drawn from her extensive travels in Europe and America with her art historian husband Gustave Ecke. She was personally acquainted with well-established artists such as Max Ernst, Joseph Albers, George Braque, and Joan Miro, whose revelations made it clear to her "that East and West share many cultural inclinations."1 It is works from this period that led art historian Richard Barnhardt to claim that the paintings of Tseng Yuho during her great creative period from 1955 through the 1960s represent a watershed in the history of Chinese landscape painting.

Hawaii Sunset (Lot 818, 1957) is one of the earliest dated works from Dsui Hua Tseng Yuho’s 1992 retrospective exhibition in Asia that represents Tseng's hybrid approach to the landscape theme and her emphasis on pictorial exploration, using both Chinese and Western Renaissance concepts of perspective. The strong black outlines allude to the artist’s analysis of pictorial space and calls attention to the similarities of intellectual innovations between cultures. "Paul Cezanne (1839-1906) was the first European painter to break with traditional perspective and introduce a new concept of pictorial space in the West. This was the result of intellectual deliberation, similar to the formulations of the Chinese literati."2 The artist explains her composition and approach to pictorial exploration, using a watercolour process to render texture as opposed to creating an illusion of reality: "My objects are 'placed and positioned' as in still-life painting. The elements are reduced to a minimum, each in its own structural position not following normal perspective...My rocks and peaks, as well as multi-layered scenery also overlap in transparent layers. In details of rocks or peaks, expanding form the principle of painting a rock 'with three sides,' I often painted rocks with four or multiple sides. Because the lines and forms direct the eye back and forth between points near and far, with vertical and lateral perspectives, they shift visually and create movement in space."3

1 Tseng, Yuho. "Dsui Hua" Dsui Hua: Tseng Yuho. Hong Kong, Hanart T Z Gallery, 1992, p. 35  

2 Ibid., p. 31

3 Ibid., p. 33