Largest collection of Wu Guanzhong ever, at Zhejiang Art Museum
By admin on 2015-01-22

Wu's watercolor A Night Feast Over a Thousand Years.

The largest-scale exhibition of revered Chinese painter Wu Guanzhong (1919-2010) will open Saturday at Zhejiang Art Museum, offering admirers of Wu the most comprehensive insight ever into his life's work.

More than 350 pieces will be on show at the exhibition, occupying seven grand exhibition halls of the art museum. The pieces on display were created by Wu from 1954-2010, covering much of the artist's 70-year career.

Among the exhibition will be several works that have never been publicly shown before, which will be "real feast for all art lovers," according to the museum.

Aside from a wide range of pieces that he created during the beginning of his career, three ink paintings that he completed this year before he passed away late June, will also on display.

Several works that Wu donated to Hong Kong Art Museum earlier this year, which made headlines at the time, will also be on show.

It is the first time that so many of Wu's works will be on display together, with nine domestic and overseas museums contributing. All of the works were donated by Wu to the museums, as he always insisted on having his creations, "enjoyed by all but not individual collectors."

According to the museum, it is very hard to pick out a highlight, as so many of the works are significant and mark each step of Wu's integration of the spirit of traditional Chinese painting and Western styles.

Born in 1919 in Jiangsu Province, Wu remains one of the most revered and collected contemporary Chinese art masters in the world. His death earlier this year was mourned as a great loss to the entire international art scene.

A series of forums and lectures will be held along with the Zhejiang exhibition, with experts on Wu's work from home and abroad participating, including Fan Di'an, director of the National Art Museum of China and Martin Powers, director of the China Research Center at the University of Michigan.

The exhibition, forums and lectures are all free to attend, although Zhejiang Art Museum is advising that residents from outside Nanjing reserve their place by calling the museum, as the number of visitors each day will be limited.