Sanyu, “The Chinese Matisse”

Sanyu, born in Sichuan, China in 1901, was among the first group of Chinese artists who, in the excitement of the aftermath of the May Fourth Movement in China, traveled with a student grant to Europe in the early 1920s to learn the techniques of Western art.

Settling in Paris, Sanyu immediately fell in with the bon amie artistic lifestyle flourishing at that time. Rather than go to an atelier which prepared the entrance examination to the Beaux-Arts, he chose the Academy de la Grande Chaumière and resolutely turned to an art which was alive and contemporary.

Attending classes at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière and frequenting the cafés of Montparnasse, he mingled and exchanged ideas with other young artists from all over the world who, like him, had convened in Paris, inspired by visions of creative expansion. Unlike his Chinese contemporaries, such as Xu Beihong and Lin Fengmian who returned to China and achieved recognition in the art academies, Sanyu chose to remain in Paris, deeply committed to continuing his artistic development. Had he returned, he most probably would have attained the fame and recognition that eluded him during his lifetime. Instead, he died in Paris in 1966 in abject poverty and obscurity

At the end of the 20’s, he met the dealer, Henri-Pierre Roché who gave him a contract. Sanyu entered the art market at a very critical and difficult time.Aat the time when the major members of the Ecole de Paris either had died or left Paris, There was little support for artists during a period of national isolationism and disinterest in the arts. Cosmopolitan Paris had become a refuge for exiles. For Sanyu the 30’s constituted a difficult and solitary period in his life but very stimulating as began to master the western technique of oil painting and water-colour.

In the course of Sanyu’s artistic career, we witness his metamorphosis from a young, modern Chinese artist to a mature Chinese modernist. The intersecting dynamics he explored and expressed resulted in a hybridization heretofore unseen and Sanyu can be regarded as one of the pivotal pioneers in this period of Chinese art history. His style is often linked to Matisse. Sanyu concentrates on a few themes repeated over and over again, nudes, still life and a few landscapes with animals.

Today, some of his paintings can sell for few millions dollars