My favorite emotional painters. The Chinese Chen Yifei. Chen graduated from the High School for Art in Shanghai in 1964, then graduated from the Shanghai Training School of Art (also called the Shanghai College of Art) in 1965 and soon after began focusing almost exclusively on oil painting. Within a year, as the Cultural Revolution gained steam, Chen caught the attention of Communist officials for his propaganda works that frequently glorified soldiers of the Communist party and portrayed grand images of Mao Zedong. Chen was soon viewed as one of the leading artists at the state-financed Shanghai Institute of Painting. Chen was fortunate to gain notoriety early in his career. As the Cultural Revolution ended in 1976, Chen continued doing oil paintings, now shifting his focus to a more romantic and European style. Many admire that Chen was one of the first artists to bridge the gap between the art of the Cultural Revolution and Western contemporary art. In the 1970s, with his fame rising due to his oil works, Chen began to attract the attention of Western buyers. One such buyer, Armand Hammer, Chairman of the Occidental Petroleum Corporation in the United States, purchased Chens Hometown Recall as a gift for Deng Xiaoping. In 1980 Chen left his position as head of the Oil Painting Department of the Shanghai Painting Academy in China to explore the art scene of New York, being one of the first artists of the Peoples Republic of China allowed out of the state to study art in the USA.[2][3] Chen often told interviewers that he arrived in New York with only $38 in his pocket but still managed to catch the attention of gallery owners early after arrival. Although he was successful as an artist in China, he ventured to the United States, not to necessarily make his print on the art establishment, but to explore his own predilections of artistic style. The New York art scene offered him freedom to experiment and settle in a style that he could be comfortable with. Chen expressed elat[ion] by the freedom to look at art and explore his own boundaries[4] He gained entrance at Hunter College in the US after he arrived and worked as an art restorer. By 1983, before graduating from Hunter College, Chens solo exhibitions at the Hammer Galleries had promoted his fame to where he later signed a contract to paint for Hammer Galleries. Chen then graduated from Hunter College in 1984 with a Masters in Art. Career In 1990, Chen returned to China, settling in Shanghai. Critics of Chens work say that this time period marked when Chen became a more commercial artist. The early 1990s denoted a point when Chens art was selling for record breaking prices in big name galleries. In the early 1990s, Chen also began building his name as businessman, investing in a magazine called the Shanghai Tatler, his Layefe fashion brands and later home design brands, and a restaurant in Xintiandi.[2] Chen also began his film production career in 1993. In 1994, Chen started his long standing friendship and partnership with Gilbert Lloyd of the Marlborough Fine Art gallery who acted as his art-dealer until his death. In the last part of Chens life, he devoted his time increasingly to acting as a style entrepreneur working as modeling agent, fashion designer and decorator as well as focusing on his film productions.
Posted on: Tue, 21 Oct 2014 09:00:26 +0000
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