Christie's Shanghai Preview: A Glimpse into 20th & 21st Century Art
Christie's will hold 20th & 21st Century Art sales in Hong Kong in September.
On August 29 and 30, Christie's Shanghai Art Space will showcase selected works, providing collectors and enthusiasts with an opportunity to engage with the works before the auctions.
Among the standout lots is "Femme Nude III," a striking portrait of Jacqueline Roque, who was Picasso's last muse and wife. In the last 17 years of the artist's life, Jacqueline served as the primary source of creative inspiration.
At over 80, Picasso reinterprets the classic reclining nude motif through bold brushwork and vivid color contrasts. In this work, Picasso honors Titian, Goya, Ingres, and Delacroix while also maintaining his ongoing artistic dialog with Matisse.
Created shortly before his death, the painting features a dual portrait of Picasso and Jacqueline in close embrace, while the reverse subtly illustrates the artist turning away from the "origin of life" toward the shadows of night. The two sides encapsulate the artist's deep reflections on love, time, and mortality in his later years.
The Shanghai preview includes Chu Teh-Chun's work "Autumn," which is notable as the sole piece in his acclaimed "Snow Landscape" series to feature golden autumn colors. Orange-red hues interlace with bright snow, reminiscent of autumnal woodlands and mountain summits.
Created at the peak of Chu's abstract expressionism in the 1980s, this work showcases his mastery of color and spatial composition.
Chu's art is rooted in Chinese culture. He acquired brushwork rhythms, ink spatial poetics, and literati painting spirituality from early calligraphy training.
Chu modernized Eastern aesthetics by incorporating Chinese landscape notions, calligraphic momentum, and intellectual principles into oil painting.
Liu Ye's 1995–2000 "Navy" series' "Blue Sea" is another masterpiece. The navy embodied 1990s Chinese boys' dreams of distant travels and adventure.
In "Blue Sea," Liu discusses personal memory, era spirit, and artistic tradition.
A 1998 artist residency at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam deepened Liu's interest in Vermeer, Klee, and Mondrian. "Blue Sea" was created around this time, retaining his interest in marine themes and honoring his Western masters with painstaking composition, pure vivid color, and rigid formalism.
The horizontal division of the sea, geometric rhythm of railings, and chromatic counterpoint of lifebuoys and waves create a rational, harmonic arrangement that gives the image a Mondrianesque balance and architecture.
A slanting light beam from beyond the frame gives the painting a stage-like feel.
If you go
Date: 10am-5pm, August 29, 30
Venue: Christie's Shanghai Art Space
Address: 4/F, 1 Zhongshan Rd E1
Christie's Shanghai preview is free and open to the public, but entry is by appointment only.
