Chu Teh Chun
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Chuh Teh Chun is the youngest son of a family of three. In 1935 he joined Hangzhou Fine Arts School, directed by Lin Fongmien. Chu Teh Chun started painting Chinese traditional paintings and intended to continue this way but, because the School had no specialised section in this field, he opted for western painting. Chu Teh Chun brilliantly passed his final diploma in 1941 and was immediately appointed assistant professor at his own school and in 1942 professor at the Nankin University. During this period Chu Teh Chun created numerous paintings. In 1947 Chu Teh Chun sailed down the Yangzejiang river: this was a great source of inspiration to him. In 1951 he became professor at the National University, where he taught western painting. In 1955 Chu Teh Chun travelled to Europe and settled in Paris where he painted Parisian landscapes, attended courses at the “Grande Chaumière”, visited “Le Louvre” as well as galleries and exhibitions. During a trip to Spain he discovered “le Prado” and Goya, Toledo and Greco’s paintings. In 1956 Chu Teh Chun also discovered abstract art through a retrospective of Nicolas de Staël’s paintings. Between 1956 and 1961 he met with his first success in Paris. His reputation reached abroad as early as 1964 thanks to exhibitions at the Carnegie Art Museum, in Pittsburgh, Jerusalem, Athens and at the Sao Paulo biennale in 1969. In 1976 Chu Teh Chun returned to calligraphy, an art he had practised as a young man and which he enjoyed adding to his paintings. In 1979 Chu Teh Chun met with his old master Lin Fongmien who was exhibiting at the Cernushci Museum in Paris and with his friend Liu KaiQu, also in Paris with a delegation of Chinese artists. These encounters led to a trip to Beijing at the invitation of China’s Union of artists. Before he had also been invited to join the jury at Hong Kong Chinese university. His fame had started in the West, it was now spreading to the East. The National History Museum of Taipei organized a large retrospective of his paintings which enabled him to show the whole of his work for the first time after 32 years of absence. In 1994, he exhibited in Singapore and in Canada where took place the travelling exhibition “Signes premiers” with Kijno and Riopelle. In 1997, a travelling exhibition organized by the AFFA (Ministry of Foreign Affairs in France) started in Beijing, moving to Hong Kong and Taipei where it ended in October 1999. Since then, numerous exhibitions and trips have taken place in France, China, Korea, Indonesia and many books written about his work. |
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