Lot Essay
Ai Xuan began his art training when he enrolled in the Beijing Central Academy of Fine Arts Preparatory School in 1963. The Cultural Revolution began shortly before his graduation in 1967 and interrupted further formal training. Between 1969-73 he served on a military farm in Tibet. After 1973, he was stationed in Chengdu as an artist and was able to devote himself to his art. During this period he developed a close relationship to the people and landscapes of the region.
The son of Ai Qing, one of China's most prominent poets, Ai Xuan was raised in a literary family environment. This background comes through in the poetic mood of his paintings. They are rich in textural details of life in the bitter Tibetan mountains and plains, yet penetrate beyond the surfaces to conjure the inner world of the artist and his subjects. Ai Xuan said of his work, "I try to express a very complicated feeling...my paintings aren't simple representations of Tibetan life...I'm expressing my own feelings and my own sense of destiny."
Since 1980, Ai Xuan's paintings have been exhibited in the Chinese National Exhibition six times. In 1981 his work won the silver medal in the Second National Youth Exhibition. In 1986 he participated in the Second Asian Art Exhibition in Japan and the Eighth National Salon in Paris, in which he received an honorable mention. In 1987 he came to the United States, where his works were received with great praise by The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, ArtNews, and the Christian Science Monitor. The same year his paintings were shown in New York in the Harkness House exhibition Contemporary Oil Paintings from the People's Republic of China. Hefner Galleries, New York held one man shows of his work in 1987 and 1988. In 1988 the artist had the long dreamed of opportunity to meet Andrew Wyeth, whose work he has admired since first seeing his prints in China in 1979. After a lengthy stay in the US, the artist returned to China in 1988, where he continues to paint. His paintings are in numerous museum and private collections in the US, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Germany, Canada and Japan.
The son of Ai Qing, one of China's most prominent poets, Ai Xuan was raised in a literary family environment. This background comes through in the poetic mood of his paintings. They are rich in textural details of life in the bitter Tibetan mountains and plains, yet penetrate beyond the surfaces to conjure the inner world of the artist and his subjects. Ai Xuan said of his work, "I try to express a very complicated feeling...my paintings aren't simple representations of Tibetan life...I'm expressing my own feelings and my own sense of destiny."
Since 1980, Ai Xuan's paintings have been exhibited in the Chinese National Exhibition six times. In 1981 his work won the silver medal in the Second National Youth Exhibition. In 1986 he participated in the Second Asian Art Exhibition in Japan and the Eighth National Salon in Paris, in which he received an honorable mention. In 1987 he came to the United States, where his works were received with great praise by The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, ArtNews, and the Christian Science Monitor. The same year his paintings were shown in New York in the Harkness House exhibition Contemporary Oil Paintings from the People's Republic of China. Hefner Galleries, New York held one man shows of his work in 1987 and 1988. In 1988 the artist had the long dreamed of opportunity to meet Andrew Wyeth, whose work he has admired since first seeing his prints in China in 1979. After a lengthy stay in the US, the artist returned to China in 1988, where he continues to paint. His paintings are in numerous museum and private collections in the US, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Germany, Canada and Japan.