Wu Zuoren was one of the leading artists and art educators in China. [File Photo]

Aided by wheelchairs and walking sticks, hundreds of artists in their 50s, 60s, and even 70s have gathered in Beijing over the past week for the centennial exhibition of their former teacher, colleague and good friend Wu Zuoren (1908-97).

"Wu is one of the best artists and teachers I have ever known," said Jin Shangyi, 73, a former student and colleague of Wu and chairman of the Chinese Artists Association.

"Fully trained at art academies in the West and winning top awards upon graduation, Wu instead devoted his talent and energy to art education in China. His influence can be felt even today at the Central Academy of Fine Arts."

The exhibition, The Academy and the Art, coincides with the 90th anniversary celebrations of the Central Academy of Fine Arts and a seminar on Wu's teaching and achievements during the 1950s and 1980s was held there last Thursday.

The exhibition today leaves the National Art Museum of China and will soon move to Jiangsu and Anhui, Wu's birthplace and home provinces, and finally to Brussels next month as part of the Year of China in Europe cultural exchange program.

Apart from over 200 of Wu's signature works of oil, ink, watercolors and calligraphy, the exhibition also focuses on his education in France and Belgium, his early sketches, manuscripts, letters and old photos to reveal his thoughts on professional art education.

Born at Suzhou in Jiangsu, Wu Zuoren was trained in the basics of Chinese art from an early age and began an art degree at Shanghai University's Department of Fine Arts in 1927.

Recommended by Xu Beihong (1895-1953), one of China's most famous modern artists, Wu then went to Europe to learn about Western contemporary art.

He first studied at the cole Nationale Suprieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1930 and later at Belgium's Royal Institute of Fine Arts, where he graduated and was honored as a Laureate Student in 1935.

The same year, Wu returned to China and taught at Central University, which was then in Nanjing, Jiangsu.

His fame spread in the West when he held painting exhibitions in Britain, France and Switzerland in 1947.

"Wu is one of the few Chinese artists who are adept in not only Western art genres such as oil and watercolor but also Chinese painting, calligraphy and poetry," comments art scholar Lang Shaojun.

His artistic style was clean, precise, clear and smooth since he absorbed the strength of oil paintings and blended it with Chinese paintings, says Lang. His work was natural, implicit but precisely shaped.

Wu's vivid oil portrayal of ink master Qi Baishi and depictions of Sanmenxia Reservoir have long been held as timeless examples of how Chinese painting techniques, Chinese aesthetics and Western oil skills can be perfectly harmonized.

His work Grazing on Tibetan Grassland, which employed the traditional style of brush work, won the Gold Medal at the Paris Grand Palace Exhibition in 1982.

"To me, Wu is a fatherly teacher, a good friend and a role model," says Jin Zhilin, 80, a veteran artist and one of Wu's former students.

Wu first introduced the studio system to the central academy and was the first director of the No 1 Art Studio of Oil Painting Department where teachers could guide a selected, small group of art students.

Wu always asked his students to "bring out the most" from the subject but "with the minimal lines, dots and patches of colors", recalls Jin Shangyi. "And he himself set an excellent example with his critically acclaimed works."

Wu is remembered by philatelists who collected stamps with lovely images of pandas Wu inked out in the 1980s. Millions of households bought copies of his ink depictions of goldfishes, eagles, yaks and camels, produced by the Rongbaozhai Studio in Beijing.

Wu "seldom gave direct answers to his students or altered the original works of his students. Instead, he gave enlightening words and let them find out the rules of artistic creation in independent thinking," recalls Ai Zhongxin, another of Wu's students.

In the 1950s, Wu held "evening gatherings for artists" in his Beijing home where artists of different disciplines exchanged ideas and tried new methods to create art pieces.

"That experience left a deep mark in my memory," recalls Jin Shangyi, who was 19 and the only student at the meetings. "Wu told me to learn from people of different backgrounds and to draw nourishment from them. I cherish his words until today."

In many people's eyes, Wu was a mild-natured man of art but Hou Yimin says he was actually "a man of strong will and moral integrity".

In the late 1930s, when Japan invaded China, Wu risked his own life by declining to collaborate with the education division of the puppet government.

In the 1970s, Wu introduced both Western and traditional Chinese arts to students instead of following blindly a rigid, realistic approach.

He is widely recognized as a man of rare talent for his artistic merits and a versatile scholar who has not only a knack for painting but also for music, dance and literature.

"My father never gave up practicing and honing his skills," recalls Xiao Hui, Wu's daughter.

Xiao remembers Wu did lots of sketches when their family went to the resort town of Beidaihe, Hebei province during hot summers. "He worked when he was trying to relax. And he seemed to enjoy it so much."

Due to his artistic achievements and his great endeavors in promoting Chinese painting in the West, Wu was awarded the French literary and art Order of Honor in 1985, and in 1988 he was honored with a title from a top-level Belgian royal honorary order.

In recent years, Wu's works have been well received in overseas markets. One of Wu's oil paintings, Battlefield Chrysanthemum All the More Fragrant, garnered an international record price of 3.52 million yuan ($425,000) at an auction in Beijing in 2006.

The painting was done in 1977 in memory of late Chinese leader Mao Zedong, who had passed away one year earlier.

(China Daily October 28, 2008)