Saturday, June 26, 2010

Important Chinese Painter Wu Guanzhong (吳冠中) died at 91

Wu Guanzhong (吳冠中), important Chinese painter and a rare talent who really understood Chinese and Western art, passed away yesterday in Beijing.  He was 91.

Mr. Wu, an engineer by training, studied painting at the National Arts Academy of Hanzhou and the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux Arts.  He was the first Chinese to be made an Officier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture.  Hong Kong was home to Mr. Wu for many years and the Hong Kong Museum of Art is home to many of his paintings.  I hope the museum will very soon show his paintings in an exhibition.






7 comments:

Gweipo said...

There was an article in SCMP today that he'd left 4 of his important paintings to HK.

W said...

Yes, the HK Museum of Art has an excellent collection of Wu's paintings (more than 40 if my memory serves me).

YTSL said...

Hi W. --

The HK Museum of Art actually currently has an exhibition of Wu's works -- Lofty Integrity is the name of that exhibition.

http://www.lcsd.gov.hk/ce/Museum/Arts/english/exhibitions/exhibitions01_jan10_02.html

W said...

Hi YTSL,

Thank you for your comment. I didn't realise that there is an exhibition of Wu's paintings going on.

Joyce Lau said...

Aw, that's a shame.
Although he was very old and lived a great life as an artist.
I went to see his show at the museum -- it's really nice. While you're there, you can also see the Hong Kong Art Biennial.
I particularly love the trees he does, with black branches and small multi-colored dots (flowers? leaves?)
I even bought a small Wu print, which Marc has just helped me hang on my home office wall.

W said...

I went to his last exhibition a few years ago and was overwhelmed. Will certainly go to see the current one.

Anonymous said...

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