On October 4, 2018, during first sale of Asian arts of the season, Tajan will put a spotlight on the Franco-Chinese painter T’ang Haywen (1927-1991) by offering thirty of his artworks .
Born in China into a prosperous family of retail traders, T’ang studied at the “Lycée Français” of Saigon. Then, he moved to Paris to study French Civilization, Literature and Oriental Languages. However, he prefers the company of masterpieces, mainly Western painting, which he admires in museums. In 1964, he painted a tribute to Cezanne and devoted himself to figurative painting. Later, he layered on paper the “dynamic and harmonious inks that demonstrate the spirit of China” (Balthus, 1996), today the most appreciated. His reputation grows over the years, he tirelessly travels the world and the exhibitions follow one another like the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford in 1975, the Musée Guimet in 2002 or the Cultural Center Saint-Louis de France in Rome in 2006, to name the most famous.
In 1988, T’ang met Leszek Kanczugowski, director in Paris of Foyer Jean-Paul II. The unbreakable friendship that unites them encourage T’ang to stay in Poland in the summer of 1990 and will only end at the painter’s death in 1991: “I met François T’ang for the first time in Sylvie’s art fair Goldschmidt and, from this first contact, was born an exceptional relationship, like this great artist. A luminous figure as his painting was, he had an astonishing vision of the world mixing great knowledge with profound simplicity, just like his Chinese soul with a rich Western culture.” (L. Kanczugowski, 2006).
The works that we will present at auction on October 4, were painted during this last trip, “the ultimo viaggio” which gives its title to the Roman exhibition of 2006. They all belong to the period of full artistic maturity of T’ang. “Neither figurative nor abstract”, as he liked to describe it, his painting encourages more and more frequently curators and critics to give him the place he deserves by bringing his inks closer to those of Zhang Daqian ( 1899-1983) and Zao Wou-ki (1920-2013). It is therefore not surprising that an exhibition, entitled “Masters of Ink”, brings together the three masters in 1999-2000 at the Tavet-Delacourt museum in Pontoise.
Our exhibition at Espace Tajan from Monday 1st to Thursday 3rd October, will be accompanied by a round table on 2nd October 2018, featuring Aude de Kerros, engraver, painter and essayist; Emmanuel Lincot, professor at the Faculty of Arts of the Catholic Institute of Paris; Yingjian Liu, secretary general of the Franco-Chinese Academy of Arts and Culture and trainer at the EAC, and Leszek Kanczugowski, art historian, curator and animator of the French artistic and cultural life. This roundtable will conclude with music by a concert of a set of “pipas” Chinese lutes, under the direction of Wang Weiping, graduate of the Conservatory of Xi’an and Doctor of Musicology of the University Paris-Sorbonne.
More info : http://tanghaywen1990poland.com/en/
