Walasse Ting

WALASSE TING (Shanghai, China, 1929 - New York, USA, 2010).
"Nu aux fleurs".
Lithograph, copy 42/200.
Signed, dated and justified by hand.
Measurements: 60 x 89 cm; 89 x 115 cm (frame).

The lithograph in tender, completely characteristic of Walasse Ting's style, combines a coloristic language with a naturalistic vision that alludes to the pictorial tradition of China, avoiding the spatial representation of European stylistic patterns.

Chinese artist and poet Ting studied briefly at the Shanghai Art Academy before leaving China in 1946 to move to Hong Kong, where he exhibited some of his watercolors in a local bookstore. In 1950, he traveled to France and eventually arrived in Paris without money, friends or accommodation. He lived as a bohemian artist for six years, absorbing the artistic styles of the city and exhibiting for the first time pieces in which he introduced characteristics of Western art, based especially on the expressionist movement and the works of Picasso. In 1958 Ting arrived in New York, coinciding with the beginning of a period of apogee for the Abstract Expressionist movement. Unlike in Paris, his work achieved remarkable artistic recognition. His paintings at that time were mainly poetic abstractions influenced by the aesthetic patterns of traditional Chinese artists. It was from the 1970s onward that Ting developed his most distinctive style using Chinese calligraphic brushstrokes to define contours and fill in flat areas of color with brightly colored acrylic paint. After more than 20 years in New York, Ting moved to Amsterdam, where he owned a large studio, where he worked until 2002, when he suffered a serious illness that retired him from the art world. In 1970 he was awarded the Guggenheim Prize for his drawings. His works are currently represented in important art centers such as the Tate Gallery in London, the Metropolitan Museum and the Guggenheim in New York, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Hong Kong Museum of Art and other collections around the world.