A towering figure of Chinese art, Wu Guanzhong passed away peacefully late Friday night in a Beijing Hospital. He was 91 years old and one of the leading Chinese artists of the 20th century. Born in Yixing, Jiangsu Province in 1919, Wu studied at the China Art Academy of Hangzhou and was trained in oil and ink painting, graduating in 1942. From 1946 to 1950, he studiedat the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris on a government scholarship. Upon his return to China, he painted primarily in oil, before transiting to ink painting in the 1970s. He will remain known for his crossing and synthesising of both oil and ink art forms, bridging the painting traditions of the East and the West. I last wrote about him last year for the
IHT when SAM mounted a restrospective exhibition of his works.
