Asian painters in Paris: Prejudices overcome, art scene recognizes

Asian painters in Paris: Prejudices overcome, art scene recognizes

Before the horrors of the Second World War , Paris was the center of the art world. The salons, schools and cafés of the city attracted painters from all over the world, including Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall, Piet Mondrian and Salvador Dalí, who flocked to the French capital in the 1920s and 1930s.

cultural differences and expectations of Asian artists

artists who came to Paris from Asia, however, saw themselves confronted with completely different expectations than their European colleagues. Paris might be a melting pot of foreign cultures (at least according to the standards of the time), but was also the heart of a colonial kingdom with a fascination for everything exotic.

The French art critic Henri Lormian was derogated to the Vietnamese painters in 1933, who were exhibited at a modern art exhibition in Paris. He noticed: "It seems that oil is a medium that is too heavy for your hands. You are habituals to work with light brush strokes." Lormian continued to argue: "It is the memories of the arts of the Far East that seduce much more than the tedious western technology."

influence of Asian artists in the interwar period

Despite marginalization and disinteresting, a generation of largely unknown artists from Japan, China, French Indochina and other parts of Asia succeeded in making a name for themselves in Paris in the interwar period. Many had to reconcile the influence of their cosmopolitan environment with the exotic tastes of potential buyers. Today, a century later, some pioneers of this era - supported by the growing purchasing power of Asian collectors - finally receive the recognition that gave their western contemporaries.

The case Le Pho and Sanyu

we take Le Pho, a Vietnamese artist who was once criticized by Lormian for a nude, which he regarded as a "to Occidental" - that is, too western. His works now achieve sums of over one million dollars and make it one of the most sought -after names in Southeast Asia. His painting "La Family Dans Le Jardin", a scene that is reminiscent of French Impressionism, but Fein on silk was painted for 18.6 million Hong Kong dollar ($ 2.3 million) sold, which represents an auction record for his works.

also Sanyu, a painter whose characteristic acts of acts with their flat perspective and flowing calligraphic lines are influenced by both its Chinese art education and French modernism, today achieve astronomical amounts. After moving from Sichuan to Paris in 1921, he received little commercial success and died in poverty four decades later. Today, however, it is celebrated as the "Chinese Matisse", whereby the sale of a rare group portraits with the title "Quatre nus" for 258 million Hong Kong dollar ($ 33 ​​million) confirms his status as one of the most sought-after contemporary artists.

fusion of traditions

The experience of Asian artists in Europe also attracts new academic interest, including through a new exhibition in Singapore. After almost ten years of preparation, the exhibition " City of Others: Asian Artists in Paris, 1920s-1940s ”more than 200 works from this time, many of them in rental traffic of French institutions and private Asian collections.

Le Pho and Sanyu play a central role, as well as the Japanese artist Tsuguharu Foujita and two of the most famous painters Singapore, Liu Kang and Georgette Chen. The exhibition illuminates how these artists struggled with their identities, by searching self -portraits, landscapes that represented their adopted home country, and street scenes that show Paris from the perspective of outsiders. References to large western art movements such as cubism and surrealism are severely restricted, which avoids the conventional view of the era.

A new look at Asian artists

"We thought when our history acts with Asian artists in Paris, we should cardographs their concerns and not try to transfer the concerns of the euro -centered art history to them," said the main curator of the exhibition, Phoebe Scott, during a preview. "Otherwise we only repeat the meaning of Paris without bringing something new from our region."

The dual identities of the artists often express themselves in the combination of eastern and western techniques. Foujitas "Self-Portrait with Cat", which shows the artist surrounded by brushes and painting utensils in his studio, refers to both European and Japanese traditions, with the fine lines of "Sumi-e" scoring paintings inspired. Elsewhere, works present various Asian sensitives, from compositions that are reminiscent of ancestral portraits, to the use of unusually thin canvases that are reminiscent of paper or silk.

Other paintings show the championship of styles overlooked by the artists such as impressionism. A selection of Chen's rural landscapes that were created during a stay in Provence radiates the warmth of Paul Cézanne; His wife's striking portrait of his wife in the red dress "by the Japanese painter ItaKura Kanae reflects the classic tendencies of the" Rappel à l’Ordre ", a French movement that rejected avant -gardeism in response to the upheavals of the First World War.

Multicultural Montparnasse

For the more established Asian artists in France, life often revolved around the multicultural quarter of Montparnasse, which was known as the "School of Paris". Here they bought their materials in the art shops in the area and made contacts in the Bohemian cafés. Sanyu refined his observation by attending open shake -free courses on the Académie de la Grande Chaumière, who to this day the public for their Drawing courses invited.

foujita, on the other hand, was a prominent figure in the Montparnasse scene and a friend of the famous Italian painters AMEDEO Modigliani . The community there consisted of "people from over 50 nationalities, including those from such obscure countries that their names are hardly known," wrote Foujita 1936. "It is no wonder that this environment promotes unconventional ideas and creativity."

challenges and success of Asian artists

The commercial necessity also played a role: The exhibition in the commercial galleries and salons of the quarter could help the artists to sell their works or to meet potential buyers. A local market for her art existed, and some were “very financially successful” at that time, as Scott explained. "But Paris was an overcrowded market for attention. Even if you had a commercial exhibition, that didn't necessarily mean that you could earn money."

The establishment of a social group like that of Foujita was a “key factor” for her success, explained Scott. "Some (Asian) artists had a very good network of connections in Paris that could support them - people who knew them or art critics who supported their work."

Nevertheless, solo exhibitions and patronage were unreachable for the vast majority of migrant artists. In recognition of this, a section of the Singapore exhibition is devoted to the craftsmen who worked in the decorative workshops of France and played an important-but largely anonymous-role in the Art Deco movement. An estimated a quarter of the Indochinese workers who lived in Paris were painters, and a selection of their jewelry and works of art is issued as proof of this unpublished role.

The legacy of the artists and the effects of the Second World War

The exhibition ends - like the time of some international artists in France - with the Second World War. Those who returned to their homeland (or were moved in by their countries) often faced difficulties. This included Foujita, whose place in art history is complicated by his role in the war effort of Japan. He devoted his war practice to the glorification of the efforts and the courage of the Imperial Army, which significantly impaired his reputation when he returned to France in 1950.

The reputation of Paris also changed. Although promising Asian creative people continued to come into the city after the war (among them Wu Guanzhong and the Abstract painter zao today The best -selling names on the art market), the city was no longer the epicenter of the art world. New York increasingly became a preferred destination for young migrants, but the industry also began to fragment the exhibition - a forerunner of today's situation.

"New places and centers gained importance with the energy of decolonization, which claimed their independence and cultural identity," said the exhibition information. "The post -war period marked the beginning of a less hierarchical global art world."

The exhibition " City of Others: Asian Artists in Paris, 1920s-1940s ”can be seen in the National Gallery Singapore until August 17, 2025.