Lot  234 Ravenel Autumn Auction 2020 Taipei

Ravenel Autumn Auction 2020 Taipei

Script Style Calligraphy

George CHANN (Chinese-American, 1913 - 1995)

c. 1970s

Oil on canvas

125 x 82 cm

Estimate

TWD 2,400,000-3,600,000

HKD 638,000-957,000

USD 82,200-123,400

CNY 565,000-847,000

Sold Price

TWD 2,040,000

HKD 554,348

USD 71,579

CNY 466,819


Signature

Signed lower right GEO-CHANN in English

PROVENANCE
Private collection, Asia

EXHIBITED
George Chann, Lin&Keng Gallery, Taipei, February 26 - March 21

ILLUSTRATED
George Chann, Lin&Keng Gallery, Taipei, 2000, color illustrated, pp. 108-109

+ OVERVIEW

Chann excelled and had an outstanding artistic achievement with portraits, the considered most difficult sort of painting. In 1947, he was invited back to China and stayed for about 3 years, during which he mainly lived in HK and became friends with prominent figures of the Lingnan school such as Chao Shao-an and Huang Chun-pi. He had hundreds of oil and water color paintings during this period of time and held exhibitions in Shanghai, Guangzhou and Hong Kong. It was after he returned to the USA that he started the experiment going from concrete to abstract art. After he came back from China he found the art work was changed. It was modernized. He tried to read the books and make his paintings change from old fashioned to modern.The modernization referred to by the artist was the Abstract Expressionism, which culminated in the 1950s in the USA. Motivated by the Oriental spirit in Jackson Pollock, Franz Kline and Mark Tobey's works, Chann gradually developed a Chinese-style abstract painting of which he used to join the postwar abstract art movement in the USA.

Chann's abstract art development is divided into several stages. First is the black-and-white collection during the 1950s in which he employed Chinese characters, marks and inscriptions; colors were not used until later. Up to the 1960s characters and symbols remained, adding on material varieties such as shattered, mix-and-match, cut-and-paste, paper-pasting effects. The expression during this period of time was substantial and sturdy, implying some traces of humanism decline. Later in the 1970s, Chann created colorful tapestry-like paintings that not only embodied modern cityscapes but combined the old civilization and modernism. Using techniques of action painting such as dripping and splashing, he fully illustrated the flamboyant mixture of the old and new.

"Script Style Calligraphy" was created in George Chann's 1970 period work. "Script Style Calligraphy" has the mystic multivocality of Tobey's write writing, its essence is closer to eastern culture; it also possesses Pollock's unrestrained line structures, enhancing magnificence of the whole picture. "Script Style Calligraphy" materially adapted oil paints, and finished with collage. The patterns are close and tight; the colors are variegated, composing an epic symphony to praise glorious history and civilization. The artist transformed the Chinese characters on bones, shells, vessels, bells, stone inscriptions, and Chinese characters into abstract patterns with modern signiicances; Especially paintings from the artist's late collections, blend lourishing colors and lines, rich in muscle, its woven form having more freedom and maturity; it's a very expressive abstract painting.
Related Info

Modern & Contemporary Art

Ravenel Autumn Auction 2020 Taipei

Sunday, December 6, 2020, 2:00pm