Lot Essay
Georgette Chen pursued her art education in Paris where in 1930 she exhibited two artworks for the first time at the Salon d'Automne. Having been trained in the tradition of the School of Paris, she was inevitably influenced by the modern art movements in the capital, particularly swayed by the stylistic elements of that fin-de-siecle movement largely known as Post-Impressionism.
The landscape in the present lot is possibly of the New Territories in Hong Kong. The painting is executed in rough impasto, characteristic of her tendency during this period spent in Hong Kong and China to experiment with style and material. Her preferred method of landscape painting was en plein air, a practice advocated by the Impressionists a century earlier. However, even while responding to nature by working en plein air, Georgette was aware of the exaggeration to which she was subjecting the landscape. Van Gogh's style and techniques are manifested in this particular work, especially apparent in Georgette's distorted chromatic vision and her emphasis on bold, textural brushstrokes. One could even liken this painting to a van Gogh landscape of 1888, Wheat fields with reaper, Auvers, in the Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio.
Like van Gogh's painting, the subject-matter of Georgette's landscape is imbued with a strong sense of time and place. From 1934 to 1950, Georgette lived alternately in Shanghai, Hong Kong and Paris, interned by the Japanese in China from about 1940-44. However, none of Georgette's works seem to reflect the political and social upheaval of the years surrounding the Sino-Japanese war. Instead, the paintings during this period evoked a sense of tranquility and escapism. The serene atmosphere of the present work certainly seems to detract from any suggestion of turbulence in the region. This phenomenon of escapism is a recurrent trend among many Southeast Asian artists practising during this time.
The landscape in the present lot is possibly of the New Territories in Hong Kong. The painting is executed in rough impasto, characteristic of her tendency during this period spent in Hong Kong and China to experiment with style and material. Her preferred method of landscape painting was en plein air, a practice advocated by the Impressionists a century earlier. However, even while responding to nature by working en plein air, Georgette was aware of the exaggeration to which she was subjecting the landscape. Van Gogh's style and techniques are manifested in this particular work, especially apparent in Georgette's distorted chromatic vision and her emphasis on bold, textural brushstrokes. One could even liken this painting to a van Gogh landscape of 1888, Wheat fields with reaper, Auvers, in the Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio.
Like van Gogh's painting, the subject-matter of Georgette's landscape is imbued with a strong sense of time and place. From 1934 to 1950, Georgette lived alternately in Shanghai, Hong Kong and Paris, interned by the Japanese in China from about 1940-44. However, none of Georgette's works seem to reflect the political and social upheaval of the years surrounding the Sino-Japanese war. Instead, the paintings during this period evoked a sense of tranquility and escapism. The serene atmosphere of the present work certainly seems to detract from any suggestion of turbulence in the region. This phenomenon of escapism is a recurrent trend among many Southeast Asian artists practising during this time.