Page 38 - September 20 2021 Fabian Collection of Chinese Paintings Art Bonhams NYC

The Late Paintings of Huang Binhong (1865-1955)

Huang Binhong’s contributions to Chinese art are innumerable. He was a journalist, an art dealer,
a collector-connoisseur, an educator, and a scholar. During thirty years in Shanghai (1907-1937) he
wrote prolifically about art and forged connections with other artists and scholars. During the same
years he travelled throughout China, sketching the scenery everywhere he traveled. A decade in
Beijing (1937-1947) began with a professorship at the Beiping (Beijing) Art Academy, where his
fellow artist Qi Baishi also was teaching. His adept connoisseurship brought him in contact with
treasures from the Qing Imperial painting collection, as an authenticating research fellow at the
Palace Museum. Foremost, Huang Binhong was an artist, remarkably innovative in his approach to
painting and calligraphy.
As a painter, Huang Binhong evolved creatively over the decades. By his own account he started
painting quite young, and he was inspired by the paintings of Chen Chongguang (1838-1896) (Lot
10). In 1884 he brought his own paintings to Zheng Shan (1811-1897) (lot 9) for advice, and later
would study with his fellow Anhui native. The many decades of study of the history of painting and
calligraphy that followed informed his work with a deep understanding of past masters.
Approaching his nineties, Huang Binhong was living in Hangzhou, where he still wrote and
theorized about art. Despite his advanced age and his eyes severely clouded by cataracts, he
also continued to paint, producing some of the most notable works in his long career. In these
late works his ink and brushwork becomes the focus of the composition, as the landscape itself
becomes deconstructed, and an unrestrained freedom emerges.

Two exceptional paintings from Huang Binhong’s late period in the Reverend Richard Fabian
collection are on offer in this sale. Lot 11 Landscape for Professor Liu Ruli, 1952, and Lot 12
Abstract Landscape, 1952, both show the artist employing the culmination of a lifetime of study
with a fiercely energetic brush. Lot 11, is dedicated to Liu Ruli (1910-1988), a professor of Western
art history who studied with Xu Beihong. Huang Binhong takes a minimalist approach in building
this landscape. Pale green, blue and ocher washes compliment the dynamic brushwork and
sinewy ink lines. Although modern in its expression and approach, the painting is rooted deeply in
art history and the scene appears timeless, as the simple huts and figures betray no indication of
the world of 1952.
With Lot 12, Abstract Landscape, 1952, the artist steps further into the sublime. The vibrant dots
and lines endow the voids and solids with a rhythmic sequence. Layered ink and light touches of
color add texture and depth. The ink is thick and dark, and the landscape coalesces, emerging
from a primordial energetic fray. In the 1950’s, when time this landscape was executed, Huang
Binhong authored an essay “The Dot and Line in Chinese Painting” analyzing the relationship
between the two forms of brushstrokes and their role as fundamental building blocks of the
landscape, and here he explores these ideas visually.
The triumph of Huang Binhong’s late career landscapes are the product of decades of study and
exploration of the Chinese ink landscape tradition. Ironically, the hindrance of near blindness did
not impede his artistic vision. After corrective eye surgery in 1953, when Huang Binhong regained
the clarity of his eyesight, he himself admitted he could not recapture the unrestrained spirit and
naturalism of the paintings he did in the years when he was nearly blind.