NEW YORK, NY.- A recently discovered masterwork, “After George Seurat’s Sunday Afternoon” by Chinese contemporary artist Hsia Yan, will go off at
Gianguan Auctions on Wednesday evening, December 12.
Known as the innovator of Fuzzy Style, Hsia Yan bathes static figures in wavy lines to create the illusion of restless motion. When overlaid on a photorealistic ground as is his adaption of George Seurat’s pontillistic “Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte” the result evokes feelings of both familiarity and discontent in the viewer.
It took Seurat about two years, 1884-1886, to complete the masterpiece that resides at the Art Institute of Chicago. Although it is not known how long Hsia Yan worked on “After George Seurat’s Sunday Afternoon,” the result is as dramatic a break from tradition as Seurat’s.
“After George Seurat’s Sunday Afternoon,” is acrylic on canvas, 37” X 50” (94 X 128.3 cm), signed in Pinyin, dated, and framed. The starting bid is a conservative $30,000. Historically, Hsia Yan’s work has commanded much interest at Sotheby’s, Christie’s, and Ravenel.
A 2018 hand scroll entitled “Mountain Folks” by Ma Le aka Ma Jianguo (b. 1963) is also on the podium. Currently active and with name recognition in China, Ma Le is also president of the UN branch of the Xinhua News Agency and Vice President of the Xinhua Calligraphy Institute.
“Mountain Folks” is dominated by vast, rugged rocks, around which legions of ant-sized people make their way. Ma Le’s pen has a way with striating heavy patches of ink to portray not only size but also impact. The ink and color on paper is inscribed, signed Ma Le, and dated. It carries six artist seals. Lot 137 is 91.5: X 20.25 “ (232 X 51.4 cm) “Mountain Folks” is set to go off at higher than $10,000.
Meanwhile, Ma Le has applied the same brutalist brush technique to the face of a delicate fan. “Tiahang Mountain Home” offers another view of the rugged cliffs and deep abysses of traditional Chinese landscapes. Here, the artist puts small houses in the foreground, eliciting the fortitude it takes the inhabitants to conquer and manage such land. Entitled, inscribed and signed by the artist with four artist seals, Lot 95 is estimated at up to $5,000.
The abandon with which Chinese artists approached their craft in the 1930s and later in the ‘70s is evident in a set of ten hand colored hors-de-commerce lithographs by Ting Walasse (1929-2010). “All In My Head” includes Title page and nine of Ting’s poems handwritten in English alongside retouched erotic photos.
Hors-de-commerce are similar to artists proofs but rarer, presented by the lithographer to the artist as thanks for choosing that printing shop. Of the forty editions, this is the second to come to auction. The other was sold at Sotheby’s. The contents of Lot 240, are 19 1/2” X 22” (49.5 cm X 57.8 cm), housed in slightly larger box. The starting bid is $7,000.
Other works by Ting Walasse include “Mid Summer Night,” an bold explosion of dots and splashes against a black ground. Of acrylic and gouache, the work is signed ting 1971. It is 14” X 21” (35.6 cm X 53.3 cm.), framed. Lot 241, it has a starting bid of $1,000.
The remaining works by Ting Walsse appear in the no-reserve section of the auction and include abstract paint and text lithographs from the 1971 “Green Banana” series. Lots 244, 245, 246, 247, 248 are signed ting 1971 in Pinyan. Most of the text contains erotic references and one is dedicated to Machteld.
Ting won a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1970. His works have been collected by MoMA, the Guggenheim, Tate Modern, Centre Pompidou and the Hong Kong Museum of Art among others.
For detailed information on “After George Seurat’s Sunday Afternoon” and the other contemporary works in the Gianguan Auctions December 12 sale, please visit the catalog at www.gianguanaucitons.com.
The auction will be held live on Wednesday, December 12 at 6 pm EDT at the gallery and online at epaillive.com, liveauctioneers.com and invaluale.com. Gallery previews begin Wednesday, December 5 and run through Wednesday, December 12 (10 a.m.–5 p.m.). For enquiries, please email info@gianguanauctions.com or call 212-867-7288.
