2015.144: Landscape

Identification and Creation

Object Number

2015.144

People

Huang Chun-pi (Huang Junbi) 黃君璧, Chinese (1898 - 1991)

Title

Landscape

Classification

Paintings

Work Type

painting, hanging scroll

Date

1972

Places

Creation Place: East Asia, China

Culture

Chinese

Persistent Link

https://hvrd.art/o/319238

Physical Descriptions

Medium

Hanging scroll; ink on paper; with artist's dedication, signature, and seals

Dimensions

painting proper: 120 x 60.2 cm (47 1/4 x 23 11/16 in.)
full mounting, including cord and roller ends: 197 × 78.7 cm (77 9/16 × 31 in.)

Inscriptions and Marks

• Signed: Upper left, black ink: Huang Junbi (Chinese brush-written characters)
• inscription: brush-written in two columns at upper left of painting, translates as follows: "For the leisurely amusement of the honorable Chu-tsing and his wife, Yaowen. Painted in Xiangjiang on an autumn day in the renzi year [1972]. Huang Junbi."
• seal: three artist's seals: 1) Square red intaglio seal, following signature: "Huang Junbi yin"
  2) Square red relief seal, following first seal: "Jun Weng"
  3) Square red relief studio seal, lower left corner: "Baiyun Tang"
  

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History

Huang Junbi, Hong Kong, 1972, gift; to Chu-tsing Li, Lawrence, Kansas (1964-2012), gift; to his son B U.K. Li, Milwaukee, Wisconsin (2012-2015), gift; to Harvard Art Museums, 2015.

Footnotes:
1. Dr. Chu-tsing Li (1920-2014)

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line

Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, The Chu-tsing Li Collection, Gift of B U.K. Li in memory of Chu-tsing Li, Yao-wen Kwang Li, and Teri Ho Li

Accession Year

2015

Object Number

2015.144

Division

Asian and Mediterranean Art

Contact

am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu

Permissions

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Descriptions

Description

Ink applied in washes, dots, and rugged strokes defines a mountain vista seen as if from a shoreline path. A boat in quiet waters suggests tranquility amid grandeur. The scale of the distant mountains is heightened by the suggestion of mist—mostly areas of reserved paper.
Using techniques he credited to China’s seventeenth-century masters, Huang Junbi developed a style in which he could portray actual landscapes, as opposed to the imagined landscapes or tradition-sanctioned compositions of pre-twentieth-century painting. After his move to Taiwan in 1949, he traveled the world and found an appreciative audience for his paintings of landmarks, especially waterfalls. His depictions of Victoria Falls in Africa and Iquacu Falls in South America won him international acclaim.
This work, however, presents an ideal rather than a real landscape, in a classical composition that might please a connoisseur of historical Chinese painting. As the dedication indicates, it is “for the leisurely amusement of the honorable Chu-tsing and his wife, Yaowen.”

Publication History

• Robert D. Mowry and Claudia Brown, A Tradition Redefined: Modern and Contemporary Chinese Ink Paintings from the Chu-tsing Li Collection, 1950-2000, exh. cat., Harvard University Art Museums/Yale University Press (Cambridge, Mass., 2007), cat. 2

Exhibition History

• A Tradition Redefined: Modern and Contemporary Chinese Ink Paintings from the Chu-tsing Li Collection, 1950-2000, Harvard University Art Museums, Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Cambridge, 11/03/2007 - 01/27/2008; Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, 06/28/2008 - 09/14/2008; Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, 10/11/2008 - 01/04/2009; Spencer Museum of Art, Lawrence, 02/11/2009 - 05/24/2009

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