Pumpkins

This composition of pumpkins, leaves and vines recalls Qi Baishi’s youth in the countryside and peasant roots. Yet, their energy and abstraction reveal the artist’s own dynamic personality and creativity. For example, the twisting tendrils of the vine are calligraphic in their creation and appearance. This painting was acquired from and published by the respected collector, connoisseur and dealer Tsao Jung Ying (1929-2011), owner of Far Eastern Fine Arts in Berkeley, California. Mr. Tsao began studying Chinese paintings from his family’s collection in his youth and during this time developed a strong interest in Qi Baishi’s paintings. Attracted to the artist’s bold and direct style but intimidated by the number of forgeries, Mr. Tsao spent the next three decades studying Qi’s works intensively. The culmination was the publication of The Paintings of Xugu and Qi Baishi in 1993. In his discussion of this painting, he concluded that it was painted at the peak of the artist’s mature style of his late 60s. “He [Qi] continued to use three broad strokes for each leaf, but before the ink had completely dried, he overlaid each of the leaves’ lobes with a single bold vein executed by wielding the brush according to the discipline of writing seal script. The fruits of this final stage also struck a happy medium between wide and think lines, naturalistic and abstract forms.” (Tsao Jung Ying, p. 282.)