Obituary: Wu Guanzhong (1919–2010)

BEIJING — Acclaimed for paintings that meld traditional Chinese brushwork with expressive modernist compositions, Wu Guanzhong died in Beijing on June 25 at age 90. Refusing to embrace Socialist Realism, Wu endured decades of political persecution, although today his finely observed paintings of nature are considered cultural treasures. The artist was the subject of major retrospectives in 2009 and 2010 at the National Art Museum of China (NAMOC), the Shanghai Art Museum, the Singapore Art Museum (SAM) and the Hong Kong Museum of Art; he had donated large numbers of works to each of those museums in recent years. Also a favorite among private collectors, his paintings routinely command multimillion-dollar prices at auction.

Born on August 29, 1919, in Jiangsu province, Wu was encouraged by his friend Chu Teh-Chun to study at the Academy of Art in Hangzhou. He worked at the Academy in the late 1930s with the painters Lin Fengmian (1900–1991) and Pan Tianshou (1897–1971)—two pioneers of Modernism and art pedagogy in China—and later moved to Yunnan, and subsequently Chongqing, when the school relocated during World War II.