Pen, ink and colour on paper

65 x 65 cm.25 3/5 x 25 3/5 in.

Signed in Chinese and pinyin, dated on bottom right
PROVENANCE
Private Collection, Asia

Zhang Xiaogang's Revelations

The British art historian Edward Lucie-Smith once said, “Anyone who has been in contact with contemporary Chinese culture will have noticed the attraction that portrait photographs... have for the inhabitants of China.” Zhang Xiaogang graduated from the Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts in 1977. In 1995, he exhibited in the 46th Venice Biennale. In 1999, Galerie de France held a solo exhibition of his work, which was the gallery's rare collaboration with a Chinese artist after their Zao Wou-Ki exhibition. In 2008, he collaborated with the world-renowned Pace Gallery. His works are in the collections of numerous public museums such as M+ in Hong Kong, Today Art Museum in Beijing and Queensland Museum.

Snapshot from a Period, a Parable of Our Time
The Bloodlines series was completed in 1999. A naked lanky youth glances to his right, avoiding eye contact with the viewer. A red birthmark can be seen on his left cheek. Grey splotches that resemble smog hover in the background. Based on the compositions of the Big Family series, he developed the Amnesia and Memory series in 2002. The hovering splotches on them could be traced back to his Bloodlines series. Those grey splotches could be interpreted as the artist's response to the unresolved social problems and unrest, as the result of the exponential economic growth in China in 1997.

Tracing the Genealogy
Stylistically, the subject in this series is a continuation of his earlier works, such as the Forever Lasting Love series from 1988. The eye contact-avoiding lanky subject with straight eyebrows is similar to the subjects in the Bloodlines series. In the last 20 years, only 7 pieces of watercolours from the Bloodlines series were up for auction. Among them, including this one, only 2 of them consist of figurative subjects with atmospheric backgrounds. Its rarity is a self-explanatory.

Price estimate:
HKD: 350,000 – 450,000
USD: 44,600 – 57,400

Auction Result:
HKD: --