Revising and repainting throughout 60 years - Zhong Han Artistic Research Exhibition, jointly held by the China Artists Association, the Central Academy of Fine Arts, the China Oil Painting Society, the Oil Painting Institute of Chinese National Academy of
Arts, and the Beijing Fine Art Academy, opened to the public at the Art Museum of Beijing Fine Art Academy on June 28. As the 64th program of the “20th Century Chinese Art Masters Series Exhibition” of the Beijing Fine Art Academy, the exhibition will highlight Zhong’s identity as a “scholar-type artist”, display his achievements in artistic creation and theoretical research in parallel, and explore the creative process and artistic evolution of his oil paintings.
“Revising and repainting” refers to Zhong Han’s creative method of repeatedly revising and repainting works on the same theme, not only an examination of the changes in his artistic techniques but also a reflection of the change of his mind. The exhibits contain the works Zhong created during the 60 years from 1963 when he graduated from the Oil Painting Research Class of the Central Academy of Fine Arts to his death in 2023. The exhibition, as a program of the 2024 National Art Museum Collections Exhibition Season hosted by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, displays over 80 pieces of Zhong’s oil paintings, rough sketches, and manuscripts recently collected by the Beijing Fine Art Academy, as well as the painter’s paraphernalia and related literature stored by the China Oil Painting Society, giving a vivid and comprehensive presentation of Zhong’s artistic path.
The meandering mother river
Zhong Han studied at the Architecture Department, Tsinghua University during his initial educational years. In 1955, the 26-year-old Zhong was admitted to the Oil Painting Department of the Central Academy of Fine Arts prestigious art masters including Ai Zhongxin, Li Hu, Wei Qimei, and Dong Xiwen. As one of the first oil painting artists cultivated by New China’s art education system, Zhong set his sights on the motherland closely connected to him at the very beginning of his art career.
In the 1950s, Zhong, still a student, participated in the construction of Sanmenxia Key Water Control Project. During the following decades, he frequented the Yellow River to sketch the mother river. The Yellow River is not only his artistic motif, but also an emotional link connecting him with the riverside people and stories over the years. The swarthy boat trackers, the roaring river, the soul-stirring work songs...all these images often appear in Zhong’s works. Being moved by the tenacity of the Yellow River boatmen, he said: “The Yellow River boatmen have an allegorical meaning. In my opinion, these toilful laborers are like the backbone of our nation. They laid the industrialization foundation in the early days of New China. Their glory has been brilliant, just like the amazing evening tide bathed in the sunset.”
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