Provenance
Private Collection, France
Literature
Rita Wong, SANYU Catalogue Raisonne: Drawings and Watercolours, Taipei, 2014, no. W29, p. 211 (illustrated)
Catalogue Essay
Sanyu paints with a fluidity that epitomises the Chinese aesthetic of ‘simplicity’. The artist’s use of Chinese ink and brush techniques is most evident in his nude ink drawings. His lines are quick, clean and precise; and yet these sketches are able to aptly capture the artist’s grasp of merging the lyrical spiritedness of traditional Chinese literati painting with Western photographic experiments with perspective through the female form, such as Man Ray and André Kertész’s.

The artist’s love for Western photography is noticeably evident through the play of perspective, where he takes on the view of a wide-angle camera lens to accentuate the hips and thighs of his nudes. One of the artist’s most loyal and well-known supporters and friends, the celebrated poet Xu Zhimo, once said that his nudes had the ‘the thighs of the universe’. Having had years of rigorous practice in traditional Chinese calligraphy since a young age, Sanyu brilliantly incorporates the ink technique into his nude drawings, evoking the beauty of the flesh. Moving away from the traditions of Western sketching through the use of charcoal and pen, Sanyu instead uses the rhythm of the calligraphy brush to create vividly subversive lines of the flesh, not only showing his ability to create flow and resilience in movement, but also demonstrating his skill of blending Western precision of line with that of Chinese ink aesthetics. The artist’s minimalist approach was perhaps informed by Henri Matisse’s nudes in his exploration of the simplication of forms in “Themes and Variations”— a series that ultimately matured to his 1950’s paper cut out series. Rooted in the aesthetic concepts within traditional Chinese literati painting, the product of Sanyu’s western artistic exposure utilises fluid calligraphic lines to form the female silhouette, controlled yet effortless.

Sanyu's drawings, with their pure lines and dexterous preciseness, are today recognised as the quintessential expression of his art, an example of Chinese aesthetic of simplicity and the embrace of the Modernist Minimalism.

2

Sanyu

Seated Woman

signed 'Yu [in Chinese] SANYU' lower right
watercolour and ink on paper
46 x 30 cm. (18 1/8 x 11 3/4 in.)

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Foujita/Sanyu: Muses and Models

Hong Kong Selling Exhibition 18-31 May 2019

1
Léonard-Tsuguharu Foujita
Nude with Raised Arms
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2
Sanyu
Seated Woman
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3
Léonard Tsuguharu Foujita
Contemplating Woman
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4
Sanyu
Kneeling Nude
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5
Léonard-Tsuguharu Foujita
Nu allongé, Madeleine
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6
Léonard-Tsuguharu Foujita
Portrait de Madame Hélène Berthelot
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7
Toshio Bando
Nude
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8
Sanyu
Femme à la fleur (Woman smelling flowers)
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9
Léonard Tsuguharu Foujita
Madeleine
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10
Léonard-Tsuguharu Foujita
Naiade
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11
Sanyu
Reclining nude
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12
Léonard-Tsuguharu Foujita
Bathers
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13
Sanyu
Seated Nude
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14
Sanyu
Standing nude
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15
Sanyu
Seated Nude
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16
Sanyu
Seated Nude
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17
Sanyu
Reclining Nude
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18
Sanyu
Standing Nude
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19
Sanyu
Standing Nude
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20
Sanyu
Seated Woman
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21
Sanyu
Reclining Nude
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22
Sanyu
Seated Nude
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23
Sanyu
Woman’s Leg
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24
Sanyu
Standing Nude
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25
Sanyu
Standing Nude
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26
Sanyu
Standing Woman
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27
Sanyu
Standing Woman
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28
Sanyu
Woman Drawing
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29
Sanyu
Woman’s Profile
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30
Léonard-Tsuguharu Foujita
Profil de jeune femme blonde au chignon (Portrait of a blond young girl with a bun)
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31
Léonard-Tsuguharu Foujita
Le mépris
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32
Léonard-Tsuguharu Foujita
Petite fille avec deux chats
Estimate HK$120,000 - 180,000
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33
Sanyu
Reclining Nude
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34
Léonard Tsuguharu Foujita
Madeleine Sleeping
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35
Sanyu
Seated woman drawing
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36
Sanyu
Standing Man
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37
Sanyu
Seated woman
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38
Sanyu
Reclining nude
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39
Sanyu
Seated woman
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40
Sanyu
Etudes de main (Study of hands)
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41
Sanyu
Seated woman
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42
Léonard-Tsuguharu Foujita
Les deux amies
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43
Léonard-Tsuguharu Foujita
Untitled
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44
Sanyu
Seated woman with extended leg
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45
Sanyu
Seated nude
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46
Sanyu
Standing Nude
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47
Sanyu
Seated Nude
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48
Sanyu
Standing nude
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49
Sanyu
Standing nude with bended leg
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50
Sanyu
Femme nu assise (Reclining nude)
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51
Sanyu
Leaning Nude
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52
Sanyu
Standing woman with raised arms (double sided)
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53
Sanyu
Standing nude (double sided)
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Foujita/Sanyu: Muses and Models

Hong Kong Selling Exhibition 18-31 May 2019

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Provenance

Literature

Catalogue Essay

2

Sanyu

Seated Woman

Foujita/Sanyu: Muses and Models

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