Background
Yu Youhan was born in 1943 in Shanghai, China.
余友涵
Yu Youhan was born in 1943 in Shanghai, China.
In 1970 Yu graduated from the Central Academy of Art & Design in Beijing.
Since 1973 Yu taught at the Shanghai Institute of Industrial Arts in China. In 1985 after his visiting a Zao Wou-ki exhibition in Hangzhou and an abstract art exhibition organized by the Boston Museum of Fine Arts in China, he began painting abstract art in the 1980s. At the same time he was a major figure in the Shanghai Minimalist movement. He began his Mao series in 1989. The series consisted of portrait-like depictions of Mao’s everyday life. Yu had no wish to pursue an interdisciplinary or international practice, as many artists of his generation did. He talked about his life during the Cultural Revolution and the impact those experiences have had on his art. In the 1980s he began an ongoing series of circle paintings relating to the Dao concept of the universe. His Pop-style paintings from the late 1980s have a decorative aspect derived from folk art, and his figurative paintings represent both the history of China and his own personal history.
But in Yu’s colored, floral-strewn portraits, Mao’s principles of “art for the purpose of political instruction” and “art for the pleasure of the masses”, set forth in his Yan’an talks on literature and art are given a new twist. Yu Youhan’s images use foksy patterns and a whimsical composition like approach to art. He started his new “Yimengshan” and “Traditional Garden” series in recent years. In 2012 for the first time in his illustrious career, he took up the challenge of extending his artistic expression to lithography. Now Yu is working and living in Shanghai.
Mao
Mao in New York
Abstract Series 2003-4-10
Chairman Mao
Mao and a Girl
1985-4
Mao and the Statue of Liberty
1990-5
Mao Image in Rose
AH, US!
Untitled (Mao/Marilyn)
Abstract 1991-8
Abstract
Towards Prosperity
A Pocket Western Art History About Mao – Foreign Mao (Mondrian)
Mao
Mao
Pop Thermos
Mao
Hover
When I Drive a Flower Bicycle, I Will Have a Good Future
Mao and His People - Blue
Mao in an Easy Chair
Untitled (Mao/Marilyn)
Mao Decorated
Mao and His Friends from the Third World
Mao: Pattern Print
People are the Heroes of Their Time
Mao's Silhouette
Untitled (Mao/Marilyn)
Quotations: "Art is valued for its freedom, and I have the right to choose."