Sanyu

Volume two of Sanyu: His Life and Complete Works in Oil comprises the catalogue raisonné of his 321 known works in oil on mirror, canvas, Masonite, board and paper. Sanyu’s compositions are a thoughtful blend of Western art traditions he was exposed to in Paris and traditional formal qualities of Chinese art. His reclining nudes with elongated bodies are rendered in Fauvist-like swaths of color. Meanwhile, his still lifes of flowers in vases employ the rectangular format of calligraphy drawings while making use of brighter, contrasting hues. Other works include his playful compositions of animals, such as goldfish floating in a glass jar or horses frolicking against a black landscape. With recent sales of Sanyu’s works numbering in the tens of millions, this catalogue raisonné, together with the biographical first volume, is a necessary guide for collectors, critics and art aficionados.

Known as the “Chinese Matisse,” Chang Yu or Sanyu (1895–1966) was one of the first modern Chinese artists to study Western art in Paris. This first volume of the catalogue raisonné is dedicated to a biography of the artist’s life. Editor Rita Wong walks readers through the stages of Sanyu’s career: from his early life in Qing Dynasty China to his journey to France as part of a government work-study program, his nude drawings made at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière, his experiments in printmaking, his time spent in New York with documentarian Robert Frank and even his brief promotion of a sport he invented called “ping-tennis.” These chapters are copiously illustrated with Sanyu’s watercolor sketches, photographs, calligraphy, newspaper clippings and more archival material that fully immerses readers into the story of his life.