LOT DETAILS

Materials:

Oil on canvas

Measurements:

78.74 in. (200.00 cm.) (height) by 31.50 in. (80.00 cm.) (width) by 1.18 in. (3.00 cm.) (width)

Description:

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Markings:

Signed in Chinese and English,titled in Chinese,dated on reverse of each work

Exhibited:

EXHIBITED：24 Apr – 24 May，The Fable of Life，Schoeni Art Gallery，Hong KongThis work is accompanied by a Certificate of Authenticity with artist’s signature issued by Schoeni Art Gallery，Hong KongCity Allegory from Zhong BiaoThe vivid impression I have of Mr.Schoeni as a wise person of positive thinking and great humour has kept on re-appearing in my mind.His contribution towards the global promotion of Chinese art has been unfathomable.Indeed he has charted a prominent place in the course of history.In 1997，with his encouragement and assistance I was able to hold my first solo exhibition and have my first catalogue published.His support is the most valuable asset I have even had in my life.What I have achieved nowadays owes entirely to the nurturing and promotional work done by Schoeni Art Gallery.All these years whenever I thought of Mr.Schoeni，I would work even harder as if one day I had to present to him my work for examination.In a way he had become a father figure to me.─Zhong BiaoZhong Biao，born in Chongqing in 1968 and currently an associate professor at Sichuan Fine Arts Institute，graduated in 1991 from the department of oil painting at Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts（now China Academy of Art）.He is a prominent contemporary painter known for his hyper realistic interpretations of modern life in this unprecedentedly challenging time.His works often contain intermingling dramatic contrasts between the old and the new，exhibiting a great degree of tension.In the late 1990s，he began to be vigorously productive as a newcomer and quickly distinguished himself from his peers in the art circle.In 1996，for example，he attracted popular attention by holding a solo exhibition at the art gallery at Sichuan Fine Arts Institute and taking part in the first exhibition of the China Oil Painting Society held at the National Art Museum of China in Beijing.In 2008 and 2009，he held solo exhibitions successively at the Yuz Museum in Jakarta and the Olivia Fine Art in London.In 2013，Suzhou Art Museum held a large-scale retrospective exhibition for him and，in 2016，he was invited to hold a solo exhibition at the Klein Sun Gallery in New York.His works have been displayed as part of the collections of the Shanghai Art Museum，the Long Museum，Guangdong Museum of Art，Singapore Art Museum and the Gwangju Museum of Art in Korea.In the magnificent Dynasty triptych，Zhong Biao uses the famed site of Beijing’s Forbidden City as background.In front of that historic orange wall symbolizing former glory and splendor，three fashionably made up women appear before our eyes.The artist meticulously adopts an upward angle to portray their fully self-confident body language with its independent，women-of-action spirit，while，behind them，withdrawing to remain in the background are three men，such as the one on the right with long hair，like a surviving Manchurian Qing intellectual，directly facing the viewer，walking towards history.Zhong’s painstaking effort to let tradition and modernity converge in the same space displays the rapid uprising of the female sex and metaphorically represent an even more open China moving towards modernity.

Literature:

LITERATURE：1997，The Fable of Life，Oil Paintings by Zhong Biao，Schoeni Art Gallery，Hong Kong，p.70-73