Zhang Daqian is probably not a family identify within the West, however in China — and the worldwide artwork market at massive — he’s on par with the likes of Warhol and Monet.

A grasp of classical Chinese language portray who later reimagined fashionable artwork in his adopted American homeland, Zhang’s work spanned traditions from ink landscapes to abstraction. And whereas the pervasive “Picasso of the East” comparability is deceptive stylistically, it nonetheless speaks to his potential to transcend style — and the sky-high costs his work now command.

In April, nearly 40 years after his loss of life, Zhang’s 1947 portray “Panorama after Wang Ximeng” grew to become his costliest work ever to promote at public sale, fetching $47 million at Sotheby’s in Hong Kong.

This will solely be the tip of the iceberg, stated San Francisco State College artwork professor Mark Johnson.

“There is not any query that Zhang Daqian is likely one of the most essential artists of the twentieth century. His work referenced international tradition and, on the identical time, was deeply embedded in Chinese language classical tradition,” Johnson stated, calling him the “first actually international Chinese language artist.”

Between worlds

Born in Sichuan, southwest China, on the flip of the twentieth century, Zhang (whose identify can be romanized as Chang Dai-chien) was a prodigious expertise from a younger age. Taught to color by his mom, he claimed that as a teen he was captured by bandits and studied poetry utilizing their looted books.

After learning textile-dyeing and weaving in Japan, he educated underneath the famend calligraphers and painters Zeng Xi and Li Ruiqing in Shanghai. Copying classical Chinese language masterpieces was basic to his schooling, and Zhang discovered to skillfully replicate the nice artists of the Ming and Qing dynasties (and later grew to become a highly-skilled forger).

He made a reputation for himself as an artist within the Nineteen Thirties, earlier than spending two years learning — and painstakingly copying — the colourful Buddhist cave murals at Dunhuang, in Gansu province. This expertise had a profound affect on his artwork. In addition to honing his figurative portray abilities, Zhang quickly began utilizing a broader vary of opulent colours in his work, reviving their recognition in Chinese language artwork “just about single handedly,” Johnson stated.

“It mainly revolutionized the potential for classical Chinese language portray, as a result of it revealed this extremely luxurious, wealthy and sensual palette that had been eschewed for a drier or extra scholarly look,” Johnson stated.

A dangling ink-painted scroll titled “The Drunken Dance” (1943), an earlier, figurative work accomplished by Zhang whereas nonetheless dwelling in China. Credit score: Museum Associates/Los Angeles County Museum of Artwork

However whereas Zhang’s observe was grounded in Chinese language custom, the ascent of communism in 1949 put him at odds along with his homeland. Specifically, Johnson stated, the painter was ill-at-ease with the brand new authorities’s disdain for historical tradition, which chairman Mao Zedong noticed as a barrier to financial progress.

“(Zhang) was so embedded in a totally totally different sort of understanding of Chinese language tradition, which was rooted on this nice classical lineage,” Johnson stated. “And the communist revolution valued a really totally different sort of artwork.”

Zhang, like many different artists, left China within the early Nineteen Fifties, dwelling in Argentina and Brazil earlier than settling in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California. In 1956, he famously met and exchanged work with Picasso in Paris, a second billed within the press as an amazing assembly between East and West. When Picasso requested Zhang to critique a few of his Chinese language-style artworks, the latter diplomatically prompt that the Spanish grasp didn’t possess the fitting instruments and later gifted him a collection of Chinese language brushes.

In addition to opening him to wider creative influences, Zhang’s new life abroad heralded an important stylistic shift in his profession: A brand new, summary type dubbed “pocai,” or splashed-color.

This shift was additionally, partly, the results of his deteriorating eyesight. Exacerbated by diabetes, Zhang’s declining imaginative and prescient made it exhausting for him to see tremendous element. Figurative kinds and outlined brushwork had been changed with swirls of coloration and deep ink blotches. Mountains, bushes and rivers had been nonetheless current, however their shapes had been solely hinted at, rendered in light traces and vague kinds as if a mist had descended over the vista.

“You can’t deny the truth that he was there, in America, within the ’60s,” stated Carmen Ip, head of the tremendous Chinese language work division at Sotheby’s Asia, through video name. “So he have to be someway impressed by Summary Expressionism. However to him, it was one thing that he may additionally relate to Chinese language portray historical past.”

New technology of collectors

Zhang’s potential to bridge East and West helps clarify the recognition of his work, which is held in establishments together with the Metropolitan Museum of Artwork in New York and the Museum of Tremendous Arts in Boston. However the meteoric rise in its market worth over the previous decade has coincided with an explosion in Chinese language spending energy.

In line with Ip, who has overseen a number of gross sales of Zhang’s work, demand for his work is essentially pushed by Chinese language patrons who now have “extra mature” gathering habits. “They perceive the standard of the work,” she stated.

One in every of Zhang’s later, summary works titled “Mountain in Summer time Clouds” (1970). Credit score: Asian Artwork Museum

“Museums in China have been gathering (Zhang’s work) fairly actively previously few years,” Ip added. “However the majority of the market belongs in non-public fingers.”

Sotheby’s declined to disclose who precisely bought “Panorama after Wang Ximeng” at April’s record-breaking public sale, solely confirming that it went to an Asian non-public purchaser. However Ip stated that curiosity within the sale had principally come from Chinese language collectors, each inside and outdoors the nation.

What was shocking about April’s sale, nonetheless, was not simply the value tag — which exceeded 370 million Hong Kong {dollars} (or $47 million, greater than 5 instances the preliminary estimate) — it was the kind of portray that smashed the file. In line with Ip, it has traditionally been Zhang’s later summary works, moderately than his extra conventional work made in China, which have attracted the biggest sums.

“The outcomes got here as a shock to us as effectively,” Ip stated. “If you happen to take a look at the costs which have been reaching the 200 million (Hong Kong {dollars}, or $25 million) degree, they’re often splash works. So, we by no means actually anticipated this.”

Sincerest type of flattery

But, in some ways, “Panorama after Wang Ximeng” is typical of Zhang’s oeuvre. Because the identify explains, the portray was a contemporary tackle Twelfth-century artist Wang Ximeng’s masterpiece “A Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains.”

In faithfully recreating components of the unique, Zhang demonstrated his mastery of the Chinese language canon. However by including flecks of gold pigment, he gave the work a wealthy new high quality.

“He was capable of elevate (the unique); he challenged it … he reworked components of the portray, which pushes it to an entire new degree,” stated Ip.

Zhang Daqian’s “Recluse within the Summer time Mountains” on show at Sotheby’s public sale home in Hong Kong in 2011. Zhang gave the six-panel display to his daughter as a marriage present. Credit score: Kin Cheung/AP

“He isn’t simply portray or imitating — he learns from these historical artists or masters. He has an amazing reminiscence and his brushwork is great and skillful, so he is capable of remodel them.”

Zhang usually paid direct homage to his influences on this approach. However his classical coaching left him so proficient at copying that the replicas he produced and offered in his lifetime usually handed for originals. Artworks as soon as attributed to Seventeenth-century masters like Bada Shanren and Shitao have since been revealed to be his handiwork. In line with Johnson, Zhang even attended an exhibition of Shitao’s work within the Nineteen Sixties, solely to disclose on the opening symposium that he had painted among the artwork on show.

Zhang was not, Johnson argued, out to deceive per se. He loved the problem, and sometimes hid playful inscriptions in his forgeries that alluded to the deception.

“I used to be a pal of a number of individuals who knew him personally,” stated Johnson, “and so they stated he simply cherished to take a pen or a brush and simply begin sketching out these masterpieces from classical Chinese language artwork that he remembered completely — the compositions and totally different sorts of brushstrokes. He cherished the craft.”

“So is it nefarious?” Johnson requested of Zhang’s forgeries. “Or is it a part of this super-sophisticated identification play?”

Prime picture caption: Zhang Daqian’s “Mist at Daybreak” (1968).