Xu Beihong

Xu Beihong 徐悲鴻
Born	(1895-07-19)July 19, 1895 Yixing, Jiangsu, Qing China
Died	September 26, 1953(1953-09-26) (aged 58) Beijing
Nationality	Chinese
Field	Oil painting, Chinese ink painting

Xu Beihong (19 July 1895 – 26 September 1953) was a Chinese painter born in Yixing, Jiangsu province. He was primarily known for his Chinese ink paintings of horses and birds and was one of the first Chinese artists to articulate the need for artistic expressions that reflected a modern China at the beginning of the 20th century. He was also regarded as one of the first to create monumental oil paintings with epic Chinese themes – a show of his high proficiency in an essential Western art technique.^[1]

Biography

Xu began studying classic Chinese works and calligraphy with his father Xu Dazhang when he was six, and Chinese painting when he was nine. In 1915, he moved to Shanghai, where he made a living off commercial and private work. He travelled to Tokyo in 1917 to study arts. When he returned to China, he began to teach at Peking University's Arts school at the invitation of Cai Yuanpei. Beginning in 1919, Xu studied overseas in Paris at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, where he studied oil painting and drawing. His travels around Western Europe allowed him to observe and imitate Western art techniques. He came back to China in 1927 and, from 1927 to 1929, gained a number of posts at institutions in China, including teaching at National Central University (now Nanjing University) in the former capital city Nanjing.

In 1933, Xu organized an exhibition of modern Chinese painting that traveled to France, Germany, Belgium, Italy, and the Soviet Union. During World War II, Xu traveled to Southeast Asia, holding exhibitions in Singapore and India. All the proceeds from these exhibitions went to Chinese people who were suffering as a result of the war.

Galloping Horse

After the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, Xu became president of the Central Academy of Fine Arts and chairman of the China Artists Association.

Xu Beihong was a master of both oils and Chinese ink. Most of his works, however, were in the Chinese traditional style. In his efforts to create a new form of national art, he combined Chinese brush and ink techniques with Western perspective and methods of composition. He integrated firm and bold brush strokes with the precise delineation of form. As an art teacher, he advocated the subordination of technique to artistic conception and emphasizes the importance of the artist's experiences in life. Of all of the Painters of the modern era, it can be safely said that Xu is the one painter most responsible for the direction taken in the modern Chinese Art world. The policies enacted by Xu at the beginning of the Communist Era continue to control not only official Government Policy towards the arts, but they continue to direct the overall direction taken in the various Art Colleges and Universities throughout China.

Xu enjoyed massive support from art collectors across Asia. Between 1939 and 1941, he held solo exhibitions in Singapore, India and Malaya (Penang, Kuala Lumpur and Ipoh) to help raise funds for the war relief effort in China. In one war benefit exhibition in March 1939, Xu held a group exhibition with Chinese ink painting masters Ren Bonian and Qi Baishi, and showcased 171 works of art at the Victoria Memorial Hall.^[2]

He also met luminaries such as Rabindranath Tagore and Mahatma Gandhi during his stay in India, and got his sources of inspiration which led to the creation of iconic works such as the 4.21m-wide The Foolish Old Man Who Removed the Mountains painting on show at the Singapore Art Museum (SAM). Artworks like After a Poem of the Six Dynasties, Portrait of Ms Jenny and Put Down Your Whip were also created during his sojourns in Southeast Asia. SAM Director Kwok Kian Chow mentioned that Xu's name tops the list in Asian modern realism art, and his connections with various parts of Asia and Europe opened a new chapter of historical narratives, exchanges and influences of aesthetics and ideas in art.^[1]

Xu constantly pushed the boundaries of visual art with new techniques and international aesthetics, in bid to reinvent Chinese art. In fact, Xu's influence extends beyond China in the early 20th-century. Many pioneer Singapore artists such as Chen Wen Hsi, Lee Man Fong and Chen Chong Swee looked up to him as a mentor and a worthy peer, sharing Xu's advocate to closely observe nature and inject realism into Chinese painting.^[3]

The Malay Dancers, one of the two vases which was believed to have been made in the 1940s, and given to the two Huang brothers who were friends of Xu Beihong

Xu died of a stroke in 1953. After his death, a Xu Beihong Museum was established at his home in Beijing.

Controversy

In 2008, two ceramic vases painted by Xu Beihong came into the centre of a legal tussle, between the sponsor of the art exhibition titled Xu Beihong In Nanyang at the Singapore Art Museum and the family friends of Xu. In their affidavit, the descendants of the late art collectors Huang Man Shi and Huang Meng Gui - brothers who were good friends with Xu - had passed the vases and some of Xu's paintings to Mr Jack Bonn, a Hong Kong art dealer in December 2006, to be auctioned off at Christie's auction house in Hong Kong in May 2007. The 18 cm-high vases were made in the 1940s, and titled Malay Dancers and Orchid. These items were to be returned to the descendants if the auctions failed. Instead, the vases went on show at the Museum without prior approval from the original owners. The Museum administration maintained they were unaware of any legal implications surrounding the artifacts during the preparation of the Xu Beihong exhibition. It was only after the end of the exhibition in July 2008, that the Museum received notice of the legal proceedings to reclaim the vases from Jack Bonn. In the meantime, the Museum acts as custodians to the vases until the end of the proceedings. On March 12, 2009 the vases were duly returned to the Singapore-based descendants of the Huang brothers.^[4]

Gallery

• 

  Orchids (c. 1940)
  Size: 14 cm
  Medium: Oil on ceramics
  Collection: Private collection.

• 

  Portrait of Ms Jenny (1939)
  Size: unknown
  Medium: Oil on canvas
  A portrait of a Cantonese dance hostess from Singapore, painted by Xu with the commission from the then-vice-consul of Belgium to Singapore.

• 

  Portrait of Lim Loh (1927)
  Size: 116 x 77 cm
  Medium: Oil on canvas
  Collection of the Lim Loh Family estate
  In 1927, Xu was introduced by his good friend, Huang Manshi to well-known Singaporean businessman Lim Cheng Gee (林志义), also known as Lim Loh (林路). Xu was commissioned to paint the portraits for Lim and his family who ran successful businesses in brick and biscuit manufacturing in Singapore. Lim was better known as the father of war hero Lim Bo Seng, who was his eleventh child.

• 

  Portrait Of Young Lady (1940)
  Size: 82 x 54 cm
  Medium: Oil on canvas
  This portrait, completed in JiangXia Tang (江夏堂) in Singapore, was of Ms Christina Li HuiWang, who later became the first wife of Asian movie mogul Dato Loke Wan Tho.

• 

  Portrait of Madam Cheng (1941)
  Size: 79.5 x 65 cm
  Medium: Oil on board
  Collection of Dato' Cheong Kai Fu, Ipoh
  This portrait was painted by Xu in Ipoh in 1941, when Madam Cheng was 92 years old. She was the mother of the late Cheong Chee (1885-1954), a wealthy Chinese tin miner and philanthropist in Malaya.

Personal life

His first wife, Jiang Biwei, has published her own memoir, which detailed her 28-years love-and-hate story with Xu Beihong. According to her memoir, in 1917, Xu Beihong went to Japan to study arts. Jiang Biwei went with him to Japan without the consent of her family. In 1927, Xu Beihong and Jiang Biwei had given birth to a son and a daughter. Three years later, Xu Beihong had a love affair with one of his female students. The affair ended with Jiang Biwei's intervention. But the damage was done and caused cracks in his relationship with Jiang Biwei. However, finally their 20-year painful relationship ended with a divorce in 1945. In 1946, Xu Beihong married Liao Jingwen, a librarian who took care of his life and career until he died in 1953. They had a son and a daughter.^[5]

Other media

A 24-episode history soap opera depicting Xu's life from early adulthood until 1949 was produced in Hebei and aired in Chinese television in 2013.

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Xu Beihong.

• Xu Beihong and his Painting Gallery at China Online Museum
• Xu Beihong Gallery and Information
• Synopsis of a planned TV series about Xu Beihong
• A brief Biography of and Painting by Xu Beihong