Christie's New York will present The Beauty of Art, an exhibition of modern Chinese painter Shi Ly as a special feature of Asian Art Week this year (Mar 22-25). Drawn from the Private Collection of Robert Hatfield Ellsworth, the painting will be on view March 15-31 at Christie’s Rockefeller Plaza New York.
Shi Lu (1919-1982) studied traditional Chinese art during his youth in Sichuan, then joined Mao Zedong and the Communist forces and mastered the socialist realist style imported from the Soviet Union. Subsequently, he evolved an utterly distinctive style of frenetic brushwork, which he applied to traditional subjects: landscapes, figures, flowers and the written word. Several intimate sketches in the exhibition also reveal Shi Lu’s skill as a portraitist and draughtsman. His tragic later years were marked by persecution during the Cultural Revolution and by mental illness.
The renowned New York fine art dealer Robert H. Ellsworth encountered Shi Lu’s art in the late 1970s during the course of his investigation into 19th and 20th century Chinese painting. His work in this field would result in 1986 in the donation of the Robert Hatfield Ellsworth Collection to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. All 471 modern Chinese paintings is the largest assemblage in the Western world to the museum. Mr. Ellsworth became the first person anywhere, East or West, to recognize the exceptional qualities of Shi Lu’s art. He set out to acquire as many works as possible, most obtained directly from Shi Lu’s family, and succeeded in assembling the most comprehensive and distinguished private collection of Shi Lu's work. Many of the paintings selected for exhibition in The Beauty of Art have not been shown or published before. They are not for sale
Shi Lu (1919-1982) studied traditional Chinese art during his youth in Sichuan, then joined Mao Zedong and the Communist forces and mastered the socialist realist style imported from the Soviet Union. Subsequently, he evolved an utterly distinctive style of frenetic brushwork, which he applied to traditional subjects: landscapes, figures, flowers and the written word. Several intimate sketches in the exhibition also reveal Shi Lu’s skill as a portraitist and draughtsman. His tragic later years were marked by persecution during the Cultural Revolution and by mental illness.The renowned New York fine art dealer Robert H. Ellsworth encountered Shi Lu’s art in the late 1970s during the course of his investigation into 19th and 20th century Chinese painting. His work in this field would result in 1986 in the donation of the Robert Hatfield Ellsworth Collection to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. All 471 modern Chinese paintings is the largest assemblage in the Western world to the museum. Mr. Ellsworth became the first person anywhere, East or West, to recognize the exceptional qualities of Shi Lu’s art. He set out to acquire as many works as possible, most obtained directly from Shi Lu’s family, and succeeded in assembling the most comprehensive and distinguished private collection of Shi Lu's work. Many of the paintings selected for exhibition in The Beauty of Art have not been shown or published before. They are not for sale