Eastern Art Online, Yousef Jameel Centre for Islamic and Asian Art

Ashmolean − Eastern Art Online, Yousef Jameel Centre for Islamic and Asian Art

Michael Sullivan: A Life of Art and Friendship

(from 11th Mar until 14th Sep 2014)

A commemorative exhibition in memory of Michael Sullivan, leading scholar of Chinese art.

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Blue abstractionfront

© The artist

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Blue abstraction

  • loan

  • Description

    Zhu Dequn (born 1920) had been a contemporary of Zhao Wuji (1921-2013) in the Hangzhou Academy and had also studied under Lin Fengmian (1900-1991). During the Second World War (1939-1945) he was in west China then Nanjing. From 1950 to 1955 he was Professor in the National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei. In 1955 he settled in Paris where, in 1999, he was installed as a member of the Academic des Beaux Arts.

    Zhu’s response to the modernism he encountered in Paris was a series of canvases that display an almost violent repudiation of figurative art. Zhu has created, in oils and acrylics, an abstract style of luminous transparency, which has established his position among leading abstract expressionists in Paris. This painting, which is a cosmic landscape with Daoist undertones, was produced in 1988 for Khoan Sullivan (1919-2003) who wished for something with a predominantly blue colour. The inscription reads ‘To Mr. and Mrs. Sullivan. Affectionately, Zhu Dequn 1988.’

  • Details

    show all
    Associated place
    Europe › United Kingdom › England (possible place of creation)
    Europe › France (possible place of creation)
    Date
    1988
    Artist/maker
    Chu Teh-Chun (1920 - 2014) (artist)
    Associated people
    Khoan Sullivan (1919 - 2003) (recipient)
    Michael Sullivan (1916 - 2013) (recipient)
    Material and technique
    oil on panel
    Dimensions
    frame 55 x 70 x 1.8 cm (height x width x depth)
    painting 45 x 60 cm (height x width)
    Material index
    oil
    Technique index
    decorated › painted,
    painted,
    covered › coated › painted,
    marked › painted
    Object type index
    visual representation › painting › oil painting
    No. of items
    1
    Credit line
    On loan from the Khoan and Michael Sullivan Collection.
    Accession no.
    LI2022.28

  • Further reading

    Sullivan, Michael, Modern Chinese Art: The Khoan and Michael Sullivan Collection, revised edn (Oxford: Ashmolean Museum, 2009), no. 164 on p. 164, illus. p.165 fig. II. 164

Past Exhibition

see (1)

Location

    • currently in research collection

Objects are sometimes moved to a different location. Our object location data is usually updated on a monthly basis. Contact the Jameel Study Centre if you are planning to visit the museum to see a particular object on display, or would like to arrange an appointment to see an object in our reserve collections.

 

Notice

Objects from past exhibitions may have now returned to our stores or a lender. Click into an individual object record to confirm whether or not an object is currently on display. Our object location data is usually updated on a monthly basis, so please contact the Jameel Study Centre if you are planning to visit the museum to see a particular Eastern Art object.

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