SANYU: His Life and Complete Works in Oil, Volume One
By Rita Wong
Designed by Glenn Suokko
Volume One of Sanyu: His Life and Complete Works in Oil draws upon archival material, photographs, letters, and stories recounted by people who knew Sanyu to trace his life from his early years in China and Japan to his journey in 1920 to Paris, where he delved into the world of sketching from live models to his exploration of and lifelong commitment to painting in oil, to his continued participation in Salon and other exhibitions, hoping for the success that was never to be, to his experiences in New York, and back to Paris, where he matured as an artist despite insurmountable difficulties, culminating until his tragic death in Paris in 1966, impoverished and forgotten.
Today, Sanyu is one of the most respected and admired of modern Chinese artists, attracting the attention of scholars, his works coveted by collectors. An examination of his life reveals that it was precisely the polarities and tensions Sanyu experienced that spurred him to create a unique pictorial language that dynamically integrated the spirit of Western modernity with centuries-old Chinese traditions. Sanyu metamorphosed from a Chinese artist of the modern period to a modernist with Chinese cultural roots. These intersecting dynamics resulted in a hybridization previously unseen.
About Sanyu
In 1921, Sanyu (Chang Yu, 1895–1966) was among many Chinese artists who left his homeland to travel abroad to learn foreign ways. Choosing Europe as his destination, he believed that to develop as an artist he needed to work in Paris, even though his life there over 45 years creating beautifully sensitive paintings in a unique pictorial language that bridged Eastern traditions with Western modernity was characterized by hopeful but false starts and debilitating failures. Although he died impoverished and in relative obscurity, today Sanyu is considered one of the most coveted modern artists, repeatedly breaking world records at art auctions.
Author: Rita Wong, Taiwan
Graphic design: Glenn Suokko, Vermont
Printer: Printer Trento, Italy
Publisher: Hatje Cantz Verlag, Germany
Editions: Chinese, English, French
248 pages, hardcover, 13 x 10½ inches (33 x 27 cm), 300 illustrations