180 Li Huayi (b. 1948)
Red Trees and Wrinkled Cliff
1994
66.1 x 125.8 cm
ink and color on paper
Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Richard Liu
Li Huayi was born in Shanghai in 1948. He is thus a member of the first
generation of Chinese artists to have grown up in new China. As a youth,
he learned the rudiments of landscape and flower painting from Wang Jimei,
the son of the renowned Shanghai School painter Wang Zhen. At the age of
sixteen Li began studying Western drawing and painting techniques with the
Belgian-trained Zhang Chongren. In 1982 he moved to California where, in
1984, he was awarded a Master of Fine Arts degree from the San Francisco
Art Institute.
Viewed from a distance, the sweeping compositional thrusts of this painting
demonstrate Li's indebtedness to Abstract Expressionism. When studied at
close range, the work clearly demonstrates the artist's complete mastery
of traditional Chinese landscape techniques, inspired by the Northern Song
dynasty masters as well as the late Ming revivalists, especially Wu Bin.
Li Huayi's inspiring landscapes provide irrefutable evidence that it is
possible to develop new forms of traditional painting that are unmistakably
Chinese yet thoroughly contemporary.