RESTUDY THE NATURE: Trace the Roots of Li Xiongcai’s Art
- show time：2019-12-26 to 2020-02-23
- Organizer：Memorial Hall of Lingnan School of Painting, Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, Guangdong Artists Association, Beijing Fine Art Academy
- venue：Beijing Fine Art Academy
Sponsored by the Memorial Hall of Lingnan School of Painting, Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, Guangdong Artists Association, Beijing Fine Art Academy, and hosted by the Art Museum of Beijing Fine Art Academy, RESTUDY THE NATURE: Trace the Roots of Li Xiongcai’s Art was held at the Art Museum of Beijing Fine Art Academy from December 26, 2019.
Li Xiongcai (1910-2001) is one of the most outstanding representative painters from the Lingnan School of Painting, and he is also an important practitioner among the Modern New Chinese Painting Movement. In his early years, he studied painting under the guidance of Gao Jianfu, the founder of the “Lingnan School of Painting”, and he later studied at the Tokyo Fine Arts School in Japan. After returning to China, he served as the tenured professor and Deputy Dean of Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, and Director for Memorial Hall of Lingnan School of Painting. As a disciple of Gao Jianfu, Li Xiongcai confronted the plight of Chinese landscape painting and practiced the artistic proposition of “compromises between the Chinese and the foreign, integration of the ancient and the modern” throughout his life. During his teaching at the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, Li Xiongcai drew a large number of drafts for the lessons, and they can be divided into trees, rocks, clouds and water. With clear steps and rigorous brushwork, they were very popular among students and became a classic example of Chinese painting teaching at that time.
As an important project of “20th Century Chinese Art Master Series Exhibition” organized by Beijing Fine Art Academy, this exhibition selects Li Xiongcai, a representative painter from the Lingnan School of Painting, as the researching object. It is divided into “Travelling Ten Thousand Miles—Landscape Sketching”, “Inspiring Generations by Exploring the Primitive State—New Tendency of Transformation”, “Descriptions of Rivers and Mountains as Chief Source—Creations and Changes of Drafts”, with more than 100 paintings by Li Xiongcai exhibited. The exhibition takes Li Xiongcai’s sketching from life in the 1940s as the clue, placing it in the context of the development of Chinese painting in the history of entire 20th century while trying to return to Li Xiongcai’s “roots” in creation trajectory and artistic practices. Thus, the inheritance of “Landscape Paintings of Li’s School” and even the development of Lingnan School of Painting can be explored.
