Wu Guanzhong

Wu Guanzhong (; 29 August 1919 – 25 June 2010) was a contemporary Chinese painter widely recognized as a founder of modern Chinese painting. He is considered to be one of the greatest contemporary Chinese painters. Wu's artworks display both Western and Eastern influences, such as the Western style of Fauvism and the Eastern style of Chinese calligraphy. Wu painted various aspects of China, including its architecture, plants, animals, people, as well as many of its landscapes and waterscapes, in a style reminiscent of the impressionist painters of the early 1900s. He was also a writer on contemporary Chinese art.

Life Wu was born in a village in Yixing, Jiangsu province, in 1919. His family wanted him to become a teacher, as his father had been. In 1935, Wu passed the entrance exam and studied electrical engineering at Zhejiang Industrial School (浙江公立工业专门学校, a technical school of Zhejiang University) in Hangzhou. While in engineering school, Wu met an art student named Zhu Dequn who was studying at the National Hangzhou Academy of Art. During a trip to Zhu's school, Wu got his first look at art and fell "madly in love" with it. Against his father's wishes, in 1936 he transferred to the art academy, studying both Chinese and Western painting under Pan Tianshou (1897–1971), Fang Ganmin (1906–1984) and Li Chaoshi (1893–1971).

Wu went through many trials and challenges during his years in college before he could master his craft. In 1937 the Sino-Japanese War began and the campus had to pick up and relocate in order to get out of the way of the invading Japanese army. During the constant movement during the war, Wu was able to see many different locations. He considered the adventures as a necessary journey to becoming a man and building his character. Wu benefitted greatly from the many teachers who taught him to paint and the rough journey to becoming a man. In 1942 he graduated from Hangzhou National Academy of Art and tried to find a job. During the war jobs were hard to find and Wu took a part-time job as a substitute teacher. He later found a job as a watercolor and drawing teacher in the Architecture Department of Chongqing University.

After Wu graduated he continued to hone his craft and studied with some of his old colleagues from school, like Zhu Dequn, Li Lincan and Zheng Wei. Each of these friends continued their art careers and left their mark on the art scene. Wu stated, "Life was only planting rice, carrying coal, criticizing one another, and fighting one another…The only thing that no one was allowed to do was paint." It is a painting that captures both the static form of traditional Jiangnan architecture and the motion of two swallows as they fly toward a tree. Geometric shapes, especially rectangles, dominate half of the painting. For example, the front walls of the houses are horizontally placed white rectangles with simple black and gray lines to depict the edges and rooftop of each building. Doorways were painted in the same minimalistic manner, yet the contrast between the darkness inside the building with the lighter door frame is prominent enough to create a sense of depth. Wu's attention to perspective and depth in Twin Swallow is a factor that distinguishes himself from many other traditional guohua painters. Although the white walls in Twin Swallows may seem like the dominating elements in this painting, it is in fact the pair of swallows that reveals Wu's intention behind this painting. In the 1950s, Wu returned from France to his homeland. It was also a time when Chinese art entered the phase of socialist realism. This artistic movement had encouraged many artists to create artwork in order to contribute to the Chinese society. Similarly, Wu felt obligated to pass on the knowledge that he had gained in France to the younger generations in China in order to promote the idea of a synthesis among Western and traditional Chinese art.

Lion Grove Garden

Lion Grove Garden was painted in 1983. The subject of this painting, Lion Grove, is the largest rockery in Suzhou. Wu Guanzhong had successfully incorporated the use of lines, planes, and dots in this painting. The lines were used to express a sense of freedom, which was also what Chinese artists enjoyed after the Cultural Revolution. Unlike traditional guohua artists, Wu's ink outlines no longer suggest the physical form of the rocks, but instead seem to suggest how Wu perceive this landscape. The forms of the rocks are shaped in diverse ways, some being round, uneven, and hollow. He paid careful attention to the ups and downs, concave and convex, caverns and peaks, and sizes of the rocks. Although the structure of the rockery is hardly identifiable in this painting, this sense of ambiguity further encourages viewers to use their imagination and look beyond what is presented in front of their eyes. About two-thirds of the paintings consist of sinuous lines and splashes of ink and colored dots, of green, yellow, purple and red, that reinforces the spontaneity and fluidity of the painting as each dot sparkles across the painting. Artistic element of planes, such as the rooftop of Suzhou-style pavilion, the bridge, and the cloister add a hint of realistic element. The foreground of this painting is a lightly shaded pale grey water where the fish reside. Although the foreground isn't as eye-catching as the rockery, it grounds the complex elements in a stable dimension.

Exhibitions Most of Wu's early works were destroyed during the Cultural Revolution. It is difficult to track down works from his early days. Wu had an exhibit in 1942 when he was in school and it was hosted by the Sha Ping Youth Palace.

Wu Guanzhong has had solo exhibitions in major art galleries and museums around the world, including China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Tokyo, Taipei, Korea, France, England and the USA. His paintings were exhibited at the British Museum in 1992; Wu was the first living Chinese artist to have an exhibition there. One of his paintings, Seascape at Beidaihe (1977), was shown at the Metropolitan Museum of Art as part of an exhibition of paintings from the collection of art dealer Robert H. Ellsworth . His work may also be seen in the collection of the Hong Kong Museum of Art.

In 2008, Wu donated 113 works to the Singapore Art Museum (SAM). This donation is the largest Wu Guanzhong donation to a public museum. In 2010, Wu donated works to the Hong Kong Art Museum.

In 2024, the Hong Kong Museum of Art ran a special exhibition titled "Wu Guanzhong: Between Black and White".

Quotes by Wu Guanzhong

"Through painting landscapes I have grown to love my motherland even more and wish to be forever intoxicated in her embrace."

"For people's hearts to communicate, there must be genuine emotion to strike a chord. Whether the feelings and perceptions of modern Chinese can find resonance in the West depends on the emotions, if they are true or false. Intelligent viewers can discern what is real and what is false."

"Abstract beauty is the heart of the beauty of figurative art. It is a natural thing to which we all respond. As a child loves to play with a kaleidoscope, so everyone likes pure form and color."

"So often there is conflict between them, and this is my greatest sorrow....Whatever I have written is to try to help our own people to understand and to get rid of their fear and suspicion of abstraction in Western art. So I can only start talking from a point of semi-abstract art, which is easier to understand. But even when I talked this away, recently there were lots of argument and objections."

"'Image' exists in the objective world. Not all images are beautiful. The discerning power of the artists eye lies in its ability to recognize the beauty in images, to grasp the elements that constitute this beauty, and to bring this beauty out in his expression, thus creating a sense of sympathy in the audience!"

"In searching for all the marvelous peaks to make sketches, for thirty years during winter, summer, spring, and autumn, I carried on my back the heavy painting equipment and set foot in the river towns, mountain villages, thick forests, and snowy peaks – from the farthest corner of the Eastern Sea to the border towns of Tibet, from the ruins of ancient Greek Gaochang (in Xinjiang) to the isles of seagulls, I stayed in truck stops, courtyards of fishermen's homes, factory buildings, and broken temples....In all of these I trained myself to develop endurance."