德群 朱
Teh-Chun Chu was born on October 24, 1920, in Suzhou city of China.
His father and grandfather were doctors who admired classical Chinese painting and collected its masterpieces. So, from the early childhood, Teh-Chun had a great opportunity to explore the peculiarities of these traditional Chinese artworks.
Teh-Chun Chu became a student of the China Academy of Art in 1935 (the National School of Fine Arts by the time) in Hangzhou where he was taught Chinese painting by Pan Tianshou. Under the tutelage of Fang Ganmin and Wu Dayu, Chu explored the aspects of the Western art along with his classmates Wu Guanzhong and Zao Wou-Ki.
Two years later, the Chinese-Japanese war forced Teh-Chun to relocate to Nankin where he enrolled at the local university and received his diploma in 1941.
Teh-Chun Chu started his career from the professor’s post at the Nankin University which he received in 1942. Six years later, the artist moved to Taiwan and pursued his teaching activity at the National Taiwan Normal University which he joined as a professor of the Western-style painting.
Then, to enrich his artistic mind by exploring the art of different countries, Chu travelled around the world. Among others places the artist visited was Egypt which impressed him a lot. In 1955, the painter settled down in the capital of France and lived there till the end of his days.
The first true acclaim came to Chu in April 1956 when he presented the portrait of his wife Tung Ching-Chao at the Paris Salon. According to Wu Guanzhong, the painting was “Mona Lisa of the East”.
Then, Teh-Chun Chu inspired by the art of the French abstractionist of landscapes Nicolas de Staël shifted from the figurative painting to his own style with bright huge strokes of colour. It was similar to Chinese calligraphy.
Debut solo show of the artist was organized in 1957 in Paris, and the exhibition at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, United States seven years later made him popular around the world. Since then, Teh-Chun Chu presented his canvases in Jerusalem, Athens, São Paulo, Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore, as well as in Canada, Republic of Korea and Indonesia. The thirty-second anniversary of the artist’s career in 1987 was marked by a huge retrospective of his artworks at the National Museum of History in Taipei, China.
Despite a great number of the oil canvases, since 1976, Teh-Chun Chu created many calligraphic works, as well.
Teh-Chun Chu was a prolific and talented Chinese painter whose achievements were marked by many awards, including the Legion of Honour, National Order of Merit and Order of Academic Palms, all of them from France. In fact, the artist became the first member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts with Chinese origins.
The threesome of the Chinese artists working in China and France, Wu Guanzhong, Zao Wou-Ki and Teh-Chun Chu were called Three Musketeers for their inventive and important artistic contributions.
Nowadays, the paintings of Teh-Chun Chu are the part of the permanent collections of many prestigious museums and institutions around the world, such as Shanghai Grand Theatre. In 2005, the Art Museum of the town held a great exhibition of the painter’s heritage. Five years later, the similar presentation took place at the National Art Museum of China in Beijing.
The canvases of Teh-Chun Chu are very popular among art collectors. So, his oil on canvas diptych of 1963 broke a personal sells record of $7.7 million in 2012 for La Foret Blanche II with the price of 9.1 million dollars. In fact, in 2013, Teh-Chun Chu occupied the third place among the most successful Chinese artists on auctions.
Untitled
Dominant Bleu
Breath that Releases Material
February 2
Dark Lightning
Life that Vitalizes the Clouds
Red Composition
Immaterial Nude
Untitled
Untitled
Composition
Composition
Blue Evocation
April 4
Equinox
Multiplied Life
Rituals
Thousand Lives Hiding in Forests
MAR 08 No 7
Veil of Illusions
Composition
Untitled
Bright Serenity of Snow
Ocean Power
Untitled
Winter Storm
West Lake
Village in a Red Rain
Abstract Composition
Timely Snow
Teh-Chun Chu was married to Tung Ching-Chao.
He was a Chinese painter known as a founder of modern Chinese painting.
He was a Chinese-French painter.
He was a Chinese painter and educator of art.
He was a Chinese painter, sculptor and educator.
He was among the artists who stood at the origins of Chinese oil painting.
