2016.231: Untitled

Identification and Creation

Object Number

2016.231

People

Chuang Che (Zhuang Zhe) 莊喆, Chinese (born 1934)

Title

Untitled

Classification

Paintings

Work Type

painting

Date

1990

Culture

Chinese

Persistent Link

https://hvrd.art/o/319263

Physical Descriptions

Medium

Mixed media on canvas, with artist’s signature

Dimensions

painting proper: 45.5 x 46 cm (17 15/16 x 18 1/8 in.)
framed: 47.6 × 47.9 × 4.1 cm (18 3/4 × 18 7/8 × 1 5/8 in.)

Inscriptions and Marks

• Signed: Lower right, paint: 1990, Zhuang Zhe (Chinese brush-written characters)
• inscription: brush-written in lower right of painting: Signed: "1990, Zhuang Zhe"

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History

Zhuang Zhe, Ann Arbor 1990-1991, gift; to Chu-tsing Li, Lawrence, Kansas (by 1991-2012), gift; to his son B U.K. Li, Milwaukee, Wisconsin (2012-2016), gift; to Harvard Art Museums, 2016.

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

2016

Object Number

2016.231

Division

Asian and Mediterranean Art

Contact

am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu

Permissions

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Descriptions

Description

Streaks of red, black, and white vie for supremacy in this painting. Textures of thick pigment, mostly acrylic, add richness to the surface, while the composition seems to suggest a powerful striding figure. Within each of the layers, a calligraphic energy informs the brushwork.
Zhuang Zhe, a native of Beijing, was the son of a prominent family of intellectuals who reestablished themselves in Taiwan in 1948. He graduated from National Taiwan Normal University and joined the Fifth Moon Group in 1958. With his wife, a ceramic artist, he resettled in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and later moved to New York.

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. 27

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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