PROVENANCE:

Ancient collecion of Jin Dongfang, Hong Kong (a gift from the artist, c. 1979)

Collection of Sanhuai House, Hong Kong

ILLUSTRATED:

Jin Dongfang, Modigliani, Cosmos Book Ltd., Hong Kong, 1979, color illustrated, coverpage.

Zhou Weiming ed., Collection of Art Garden Studio No. 72: Sanhuai House's Modern Chinese Paintings, People Fine Arts Publishing House, Shanghai, 2004, color illustrated, no. 6, p. 5

"Reclining Nude in Modigliani's Style" is a rapturous watercolor created by Lin Fengmian around 1979 that adopts the reclining pose of the female nude in Modigliani's Reclining Nude. It was painted especially for the publication of a biography of Modigliani by Ms. Jin Dongfang in Hong Kong. The painting was the front cover illustration for the book and was later given to Ms. Jin as a token of remembrance.

Jin wrote in her own preface to the book, "Modigliani was dealt with to the greatest extent among great painters, who were so profoundly misunderstood during their lifetime and so highly venerated after their death. The author could not refrain from feeling for the painter and giving my humble thoughts, which were compiled into articles and published in the art pages of Overseas Chinese Daily in separate issues between 1976 and 1977. The articles were fortunately well received and clipped for collection by readers. Those who lacked a complete collection of the article clips later suggested the publication of a book complied with the articles. The author was grateful that the publication of the book coincided with the arrival of contemporary master painter Lin Fengmian from Shanghai to Hong Kong, who agreed to design the front cover for the book. The preface is written on April's Fool Day, 1979." The back cover is also marked "Mr. Lin Fengmian made a painting especially for the front cover of the book".

Jin Dongfang was an acclaimed painter of traditional Chinese drama characters, and also excelled at writing novels, essays and art criticisms. Born in Changzhou, Jiansu Province in 1930, she attended the Department of Oil Painting at Zhejiang Academy of Art (i.e. Hangzhou College of Art) and studied with Lin Fengmian and Guan Liang for seven years. She maintained close contact with Lin during the years he lived in seclusion in Shanghai in the 1950s. Many painter's portraits of ladies were modeled after Jin. In 1966, Jin settled down in Hong Kong. Lin was persecuted during the Cultural Revolution and arrived in Hong Kong in 1977 via Guangzhou and Macao with the help of Jin and friends. Ms. Yuan Xiangwen, a friend of Lin during his stay in Shanghai, talked about the past relationship between Lin and Jin (whose real name was Jin Bifen) in an interview in 2005. (Please refer to 'An Account of Lin Fengmian's Artistic Anecdotes in Shanghai: An Interview with Yuan Xiangwen by Xiao Fuyuan', Chinese Modernist Painting Master – Lin Fengmian, published by Tianjin People' s Fine Arts Publishing House, 2005.)

Portraits remained one of the important themes in Lin's works and cast a unique aesthetic that blends the merits of Chinese and Western arts. He portrayed Chinese ladies seated in the same vajra posture as Bodhisattva. Characters in traditional Chinese drama combined cubism and the style of shadow puppetry. His bending and twisted postures and decorative coloring were adapted from Matisse's style. The reclining posture was inspired by Modigliani. The work "Reclining Nude in Modigliani's Style" adopted exact ly the recl ining nude posture typical of Modigliani. The spatial penetration represented in the background sea scene was typical Lin's style. A few pastel touches add softness to the picture. The white line contour sketch of the nude is concise and crisp. Such exhilaratingly effortless and thorough representation required superior mastery of depiction. Whi l e Modigl i ani ' s nude pa int ing represents desire with a hazy gaze, full of seductive charms, Lin's portrays an implicative delicate and tender Oriental Lin's paintings reflected his aesthetic view. Most of his portraits of women were modeled after the familiar looks of his wife, daughter, students and lovers. They were not necessarily faithful reflections of the persons portrayed, but more likely the manifestations of admiration for, and reminiscence of youthful looks. Lin had a passionate, open and liberal spirit because he experienced the free style of unrestricted passion in the West during his earlier years of study in France and Germany. According to the analysis by Chinese art historian, Ding Xiyuan, Lin already occasionally painted nudes as early as in the 1940s and became completely devoted to such depictions in the late 1980s. This opened a new chapter in the history of Chinese paintings. "It is difficult to precisely determine the first artist who painted nudes in Chinese hi s tory, but Li n continued to enjoy painting nudes into his old age. This is indeed rare in the history of both Chinese and Western paintings. Lin is by far, the painter who has done the largest number of nude paintings in a distinguished way in the history of Chinese paintings. It is undeniable that there are paintings like Portrait of Nudes of the Tang Dynasty found in the wall painting of the Guizi civilization, and" the Secretive Erotic Games" in the Song Dynas t y. Mos t of these are erotic paintings and are different from nude paintings in the modern sense. In Lin's works in this category, an atmosphere of nobility prevails. All the ladies portrayed have nice features and radiate with robustness and vitality. It is considered a miracle in the realm of painting that a man at such an advanced age should be able to command such youthful vibrancy with the strokes of his brush. Lin learned extensively from Western paintings and effortlessly commanded the knowledge with his brush. His nude paintings have complemented and enriched the picture and expressiveness of Chinese paintings. This is considered a successful attempt." (cf. 'A Study on Lin Fengmian' by Ding Xiyuan, "Mastery Work's: A Featured Collection of Lin Fengmian's Works", Han Mo No. 24, Hong Kong, 1992, p. 86.)

Perfect Combination of Academic Value and Market Value - analysis about Lin Fengmian's art and market

Tragic and splendid life of art

Lin Fengmian (1900-1991) is a modern painter and fine arts educator. His former name is Lin Fengming. He was born in Meixian County of Guangdong Province. Since childhood he was fond of painting. At the age of 19 he went to France where he worked his way through study. Firstly he conducted western painting study in Dijon Arts School and then shifted to Ecole nationale scupérieure des beaux-arts of Paris for further study. In school he was exposed to the education of institutional school. Outside the school, he was deeply influenced by modern schools on the trend at that time, such as postimpressionism, Fauvism and Primitivism, with Matisse and Modigliani as the most prominent figures. Their influence is reflected in the painting style of Lin Fengmian which specialized in combining Chinese element with the Western one. His works have been selected into French Autumn Salon.

In 1925, after Lin Fengmian returned to homeland, he, as a professor, took the post of president of Beiping Art College. In 1928, Lin Fengmian was invited by Cai Yuanpei and went to Hangzhou to found the state-run art institute (later the Zhejiang Fine Arts Institute). During Anti- Japanese War, Lin Fengmian moved to the southwest, where he led a poor life and indulged himself in painting everyday in a bid to break through traditional painting procedure. In 1950, Lin Fengmian resigned the post of professor in East China Branch of Hangzhou Central Fine Arts Institute. He removed to the room on 2/F of a French building on Nanchang Road, Shanghai and was engaged in exploration into painting. Before long, his French wife left China with her daughter and thus he led a lonely poor life. Except the life in rural area, mountain area and fishing ground, he closed in the door for painting. Every early morning after 1 a.m., the neighbor could see light in Lin Fengmian's drawing studio. After over a decade, the art circle is almost oblivious of Lin Fengmian. However, it was in his prime time of art that "Lin Fengmian Style" evolved to consummate level in the silent cultivation. In 1950s, his art was negated and he was in financial strait. Every month he had to exchange some living expenses with two paintings. During the 10 years of turbulent Cultural Revolution, facing times of conf i scation, the helpless Lin Fengmian soaked in the bathtub over a thousand of his works that were his efforts for decades and flushed them off from the lavatory.

In 1977 Lin Fengmian migrated to Hong Kong, where he led a recluse life and was studiously engaged in art creation till his late years. Appearance of his works has more enthusiastic color, more uninhibited strokes and more mellow appeal. In 1979 Lin Fengmian held an individual exhibition in Paris and got a great success. During the period Lin Fengmian was Chairman of Shanghai Artists Association and painter of SH China Gallery, making great contribution to fine arts cause in Shanghai and the country as a whole. Before going to Hong Kong, he stored his 105 paintings he created in Shanghai in Shanghai Chinese Painting Institute, and shortly after, presented this batch of paintings to the state.

During his late years, in 1988, Lin Fengmian was invited to launch "Retrospective exhibition of Li n Fengmian's 90th birthday" by National Museum of History in Taiwan. Li n Fengmian Art Symposium was held in Beijing China Art Research Institute. In the same year,"Lin Fengmian Painting Exhibition" was held in National Museum of China in Be i j ing. In 1989, Li n Fengmian displayed in Taipei a batch of works, including "Quyuan", "Southern Heaven Gate", "Cao Cao Gets Burnrd at Chibi", "Nightmare", "Pain", "Death of Christ" etc., in which he changed his previous peacefulness and elegance and trends to vehemence and gloominess. Ink lines in the paining are powerful with many slanting, breaks and clashes, full of uneasiness and tension. His emotion is like gust of wind and storm that rages and bumping in the spark in mind. On August 12, 1991 he was dead in Hong Kong Adventist Hospital at the age of 92.

With distinguished artistic talents and pioneering spirit, Lin Fengmian has got in-depth comprehension about the essence of Western arts. Western style is applied in combination with Chinese style and wide range of techniques is conglomerated. With his spirit of exploration and innovation, he has created a brand new style of painting that is different from others in the ancient time and at present and makes people refreshing. Thus he has become the eminent artist integrating Chinese and Western styles and demonstrating national spirit. No matter how the difference in the people's aesthetic philosophy is, Lin Fengmian has been accepted as the indispensable artist in 20th Century. That is the essential fact.

Style of Lin's integrating Chinese and Western styles and demonstrating national spirit

As one of the most important artists in mode rn Chine s e hi s tory, Li n Fengmian is the trailblazer in modern Chinese painting based on integration of Chinese and Western styles. Lin Fengmian's understanding about traditional Chinese art is different from other contemporary painters. Rather than "Western style used by Chinese", his attitude toward foreign art is "Western tool used by Chinese". Though there is idea that he has got into local painting from the visual angle of Western art and made use of traditional painting resource on the basis of European idea about painting, it cannot be negated that Lin Fengmian's painting is really the modern Chinese art with distinguishing Chinese cultural spirit and strong realistic sentiment. As a pioneer, t rai lblazer and the mos t impor tant representative of the art philosophy of "Chinese and Western integration", he is also titled "Cézanne in China" and "father of modern Chinese painting".

Lin Fengmian has absorbed nutriment of modern painting after impressionism in the west and integrated traditional Chinese ink style and level, and added his personal experience and explored out distinctive "Style of Lin's" He is a painter closed to "the ideal of harmony and spiritual integration of Eastern and Eestern styles". Lin Fengmian is good at depiction of ladies, characters in Beijing Opera, aroma of fishing village, nude of the woman as well as various still lives and other kinds of landscape paintings. In term of contents of the works, there is a kind of melancholy, lonely, hollow and emotional style. It is just such gloominess and loneliness that add some aesthetic tragedy charm in his works. That is attributable to the painter's arduous life. In form, his painting features square composition and absence of title. His painting has unique feature and the viewer can distinguish at the first glance. He has been striving to break through the demarcation between the Chinese and Western art and create a common language of art.

Wu Guanzhong, his disciple, has used tune of Beijing Opera to compare Lin Fengmian's art features: Lin Fengmian's tune is unique and distinctive. He integrates the round and the square. Basically he adopted square composition of painting and pursues the maximal expansion and the strictest contraction, so as to compose the balance of force in the contradiction of expansion and contraction. Images of lonely charm in painting slike nude of woman, nun, crow with drawing neck, owl, lotus, duckweed, on-thefan painting, lemon, autumn leaves have been included into Lin Fengmian's tune. Then he has not got limited in the round. While using the shield of "round", he keeps brandishing the lance: sharp reed leaves, floating willow, slanting twigs, legs of the egret, pole of the fisher.... All these have composed comparison and harmony integrating into the painting. These features of Lin Fengmian have cast a far-reaching impact upon contemporary painters.

Art education with allinclusiveness and free academic pursuit

Lin Fengmian is also one of the main founders of modern Chinese fine arts education. In development of Chinese art, Lin Fengmian's art education and philosophy about art function have the equivalent special significance. At the same time we are able to get an in-depth undertaking about his style of art from his allegation about art education.

Influenced by Cai Yuanpei's idea about aesthetic education, Lin Fengmian has inherited the wave of the May Fourth New Cultural Movement, advocated the New Art movement and actively undertook the heavy task of improving the people's spirit with aesthetic education, so as to promote social remolding and progress. He endeavors to innovate in art education. He has invited Qi Baishi, the painter originating from a carpenter, onto the lectern and employed French Professor to give lecture on western painting. Then he presented the slogan of "promoting the art shared by all nations among all classes", which received hurrah from the national art circle. Lin advocates the educational idea of "all-inclusiveness and free academic pursuit" and absorbing a wide range of talented people with uninhibited style. He has cultivated a batch of renowned artists like Li Keran, Wu Guanzhong, Wang Chaowen, Ai Qing, Zao Wou-ki, Chao Chun-hsiang, Chu Tehchun and Shiy De-jinn, etc.

"Introduce Western fine arts, rationalize Chinese art, harmonize Chinese and Western art and create art of the epoch". That is the motto formulated by Lin Fengmian for the national art college. Lin Fengmian's idea about school running and art thought can be said to have been originated from France where he had studied, made clear in time when Beijing set up the national art college and arts movement, and clearer when Hangzhou set up state-run art research institute. Not only had he developed in this orientation, but had also cultivated his students in this direction. Shortly after state-run art research institute began academic semester, he proposed combination of western painting and Chinese painting. The Syllabus of Art Education reflecting common thought of Lin Fengmian and Lin Wenzheng has clear record: Painting department in this school is different from that in other places, for it has at least combined Chinese painting with western paining. Common people in China generally think that there is a sharp gap between Chinese painting and western painting, and they are almost irrelevant. Art schools over the country have accepted such idea and draw a man-made painting demarcation between Chinese painting school and western painting school. Therefore, teachers and students of the two schools have mutual slighting against each other, because of the misunderstanding. That has become the misfortune of art! We need to blaze other trail for adapting the decadent Chinese painting to the social sense. Research into Chinese painting allows no negligence of contribution of the western painting. If we want to make oil painting break way from the stale western style and it could represent the new art of national spirit, the paint researcher cannot neglect achievements made by Chinese painting for hundreds of years.

With the greatest sincerity, Lin Fengmian proposed in Chinese painting circle that: "in present environment where western art rushes in, new Chinese painter is in urgent need and we should make best use of the new method they contribute to us; traditional, imitating and copying ideas has not only dealt a fatal blow upon painting, but has caused decadence of Chinese art . We should endeavor to break through all inhibition and make resurgence of Chinese painting possible."

Continuous increase in market

Thanks to Lin Fengmian's key position in the history of fine arts as well as scarcity of his work in current market, price of Lin Fengmian's works has kept increasing in recent years. According to incomplete statistics, in domestic auction market, there are over 200 of his works with closing bargain beyond HK$ 1 million and over 20 of his works with closing bargain beyond HK$ 4 million. In overall view, Lin Fengmian's works have long received praise on the market and the price has kept high.

In view of material of creation, colored ink painting is the most important and the largesse category in Lin Fengmian' s career of art, while Lin Fengmian' s creation of oil paintings are mainly focused on painting in his early years, when his works are few in amount. Then after large amount of damage in the Cultural Revolution, fewer of his oil paintings are extant. After he went to Hong Kong, he almost created no oil painting. Therefore, once there is oil painting appearing in the market, collectors of Lin Fengmian's works are bound to spend all they have and fulfill their wish. For instance, in Hong Kong auctions in 2005, there is "Village"created from about 1940s to 1950s, arousing great concern and finally the work has been bargained at high price of HK$ 7,288,000.

In view of topics, among the topics of ladies, characters in Beijing Opera, aroma of fishing village, nude of the woman as well as various still lives and other kinds of landscape paintings, the price of ladies and characters in Beijing Opera is relatively high. In the Hong Kong auction in 2005, the Four Beauties stunned the presence and caused mutual compet i t ion among the col lectors . Finally it was closed at the price of HK$ 7,736,000, breaking the record of closing price for auction in person. Apart from the topic of character, other topics have demonstrated excellent achievements. In spring auction of Ravenel in 2006, Lin Fengmian's "Autumn Haze" created in 1950s was closed at the high price of HK$ 5,471,000.

In view of the collection market , previously Hong Kong and Taipe i have been two major markets. There are collectors concerning about Lin Fengmi an's works in both places , especially Hong Kong. In recent years, with rapid growth of market in Mainland China, market shares in Beijing and Shanghai are also burgeoning and have exceeded market share in Taiwan. Lin Fengmian removed to Hong Kong in his later years. During the decade then, his creation was unrelenting, so he has many confidants in Hong Kong. Currently, most of the key collectors of Lin Fengmian's works are from Hong Kong. What worth of introduction is that in the spring auction of this year, the topic auction of Lin Fengmian Collection of Sanhuai House have won great success. Nine color ink paintings are all sold out. Among them, his "Green Willows, West Lake" was closed at the price of HK$ 4.379 million and "Pines of Mount Huang" was closed at the price of HK$ 3.452 million. In the preparatory exhibition, the two works have attracted many purchasers to inquire. Master of Sanhuaitang is the famous Lin Fengmian collector in Hong Kong. History of his collection has been nearly 30 years. Many of Lin Fengmian' s works he collected in the past have been lent to the museum for exhibition, such as the Chinese-Paris joint exhibition at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum, the special exhibition of Lin Fengmian's works in Hong Kong Art Center in 1990s, The Approach of Lin Fengmian review exhibition for hundred years of age of Lin Fengmian at Shanghai Art Museum in 1999, etc. In the renowned The Collected Works of Lin Fengmian, (I and II) published by Tianjin People's Fine Arts Press in 1994, many works were the collect ion of the Sanhua House. His taste of art is naturally genuine and fine and he can be regarded as the accreditation expert of Lin Fengmian's works.

In the "Collection of Lin Fengmian" in this autumn auction, we are lucky to get great support from the Master of Sanhua House, who parted with his six fine works collected for many years: "Dongpo Appreciating Bamboo" in 1950s, "Pot of Flowers" in 1960s, as well as "Village in the Maple Forest", "Autumn Forest", "Reclining Nude in Modigliani's Style" and "Reeds and Wild Geese" in the mid of 1980s. In addition, Special Auction of Lin Fengmian held by us this time has displayed other rare collections carefully selected: "Lady in Front of Mirror" in 1940s, "Flowers in Vase" in 1950s, "Bird" in 1977, "Still Life" at the beginning of 1980s, and exquisite "Lady" and "Flowers and Bird". Thus the high-grade special auction is bound to rise up a new round of Lin Fengmian upsurge.