One above the other, two black lines horizontally extend across the image with tonal gradations as vivid as that of ink wash. It is majestic, imposing, yet effortlessly fluid. Translucent silvery light glows in the background, illuminating the magnificent layers of ochre-tinted hues meandering across the canvas in emulation of the earth that engenders new life with its warmth, generous bounty and unchanging stability. Abstract No. 82, created by Chu Teh-Chun in 1961, overflows with a vitality of life, emitting rays of wisdom with infinite serenity and generosity. The dark strokes of ink that guide our vision signify the profound Chinese cultural heritage of an artist who has found an alternate home on European soil. The intricate intersections between long traditions of Western painting aesthetics and the essence of Eastern culture represent the opening up of new possibilities for the progression of the history of art.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, China was entangled in wars, violence, and unrest. Yet the spiritual strength of great souls rose above the hardships and turmoil of their eras and were reborn with the grace and glory that only comes with great pain and hopeless destitution. Chu Teh-Chun was a child of this tumultuous era, but it was precisely these trials and difficulties in his background that made his determination to seek sincerity, goodness, and beauty all the more invaluable. Born in 1920, Chu Teh-Chun was accepted into the National Hangzhou School of Art (now the National Academy of Art) at the age of 15 and was placed under the instruction of masters such as Lin Feng-Mian, Pan Tian-Shou and Wu Da-Yu. Lin Feng-Mian, then President of the academy, advocated a liberal education, which allowed Chu Teh-Chun to gain much insight into Western modern art and inspired him to explore new directions in his artistic creations. In 1937, with the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War and the aggressive attacks of the Japanese army, the Hangzhou School of Art was forced to relocate further and further inland, moving from Anhui through to Hubei, Hunan, Guizhou, and Sichuan all the way to Yunnan. Chu Teh- Chun completed his studies in the midst of war and chaos, but was serendipitously given the opportunity to experience the wonderful sceneries and local colors of each region as the school moved to each location. After the end of the Sino- Japanese War, Chu Teh-Chun held a teaching position at Nanjing Central University for four years, but was obliged to relocate to Taipei in 1949 with the intensification of the Nationalist-Communist civil war. Sadly, the works of art Chu left behind in Mainland China were irrevocably lost. Upon his arrival in Taiwan, Chu was successively employed at Taipei Industrial Academy (now the National Taipei University of Technology) and Taiwan Teacher’s College (today National Taiwan Normal University). He also held his first solo exhibition ever in 1954 at the Taipei Zhongshan Hall.

Two years later, in 1955, Chu Teh-Chun traveled to France by ship in the company of Dong Jing-Zhao, who would later become his wife. This time his relocation was not due to the horrors of war but to a heartfelt longing for proximity to Western contemporary art, which was why the couple chose to settle down in the city of Paris, birthplace of modern art in the West, and the place where his beloved teacher Lin Feng-Mian once resided in and was profoundly inspired by. Chu Teh-Chun wandered ardently through the Musée du Louvre amidst centuries’ worth of priceless art, and was also a frequent visitor of the Academie de la Grande Chaumiere, an institute brimming with the vitality of freedom and creativity. Chu Teh-Chun was dissatisfied with his accomplished skills in realist oil paintings, and yearned to develop an artistic language that more suited his personal aesthetics. He emulated Paul Cezanne in his search for the essence of form, and finally began attempting non-representational oil painting after attending the Nicolas de Stael retrospective exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in Paris in 1956. Light, lines and colors escape visible boundaries and are reconstructed on the canvas as lyrical, musical imaginative mindscapes. This vocabulary of freedom and fluidity coincides with Chu Teh-Chun’s liberality and is perfectly suited to the expression of his deep, dynamic emotions. His first solo exhibition after his arrival in Paris was held in 1958, after which he immediately entered into a collaborative contract with the Legendre Gallery, which was then curated by Maurice Panier. This became the first step in the dissemination of his profound influence in world of modern European art.

Chu Teh-Chun’s creative career is the culmination of a breakthrough from realist representations inspired by modern European art as well as the heritage of Chinese cultural traditions. They allowed him to formulate a unique artistic vocabulary and internal spirituality. Both of these influences played integral parts in his creative processes. Born into a renowned physician’s family in Anhui, Chu Teh-Chun received an early education rich in traditional Chinese classics. His world was surrounded by beautiful collections of paintings and calligraphy that were painstakingly assembled by his forefathers, and it was under his father’s personal instruction that he emulated the calligraphy styles of the classic Chinese masters. These scholarships of Oriental influence would later metabolize and transform into different forces of creative energy throughout his artistic career, the earliest and most easily identifiable of which was the influence of Chinese calligraphy. As the artist himself later recalled, in 1961 he experienced a sudden longing for the touch of ink and wash, but was unable to obtain xuan paper anywhere in France. He chose to use blotting paper instead, and reveled in the rhetoric of ink on paper. Chu’s artistic creations from the early 1960s already exemplified his application of ink calligraphy into abstract painting and the formulation of a comprehensive, highly unique Chu-style artistic vocabulary. Abstract No. 82, painted in 1961, is one of the most exhilarating creations from this era.

Pure black does not exist in the natural world; even shadows are made of different gradations of gray and other dark hues. This is a commonly accepted principle of painting in Western culture that has stood the test of time and centuries of aesthetic development. Chu Teh-Chun, however, went against the grain by utilizing heavy strokes of dark, intense black in his paintings of the 1960s, giving the lead role to the originally dark, uninteresting color. In the world of Western art, where representation of color and natural beauty take precedence, Chu’s choice is no doubt both highly audacious and revolutionary. The intense black that is engendered by Chu Teh-Chun’s powerful brush strokes is both intrepid and majestic. His use of Western abstract painting techniques to manifest the indomitable spirit of Chinese scenic paintings by Song dynasty master artist Fan Kuan is truly magnificent. Abstract No. 82 also exemplifies Chu’s use of light. Even in a painting that encompasses the use of dark, heavy colors like black and unsaturated ochre, the canvas is far from turbid but instead emanates the brightness and clarity of light. This brightness and purity also became an integral part of the artist later, with more vibrant creations in a multitude of different representational methods. Just as Japanese art historian Katsumi Miyazaki aptly expressed, “What Chu Teh- Chun truly acquired from Western art is the permeation of light through a backdrop of darkness that is so typical of Goya of Rembrandt. This is why his works of art are created with a style that epitomizes the perfect union of the material light of the West and the tonal gradations of Chinese ink paintings within a space of infinite expansiveness.” (“Tracing the Orbit of Chu Teh- Chun,” Magnanimity—Formlessness, written by art historian Katsumi Miyazaki, Taiwan Rubycon Corporation, The Ueno Royal Museum, 2008, p. 52)