LIU KUO-SUNG (LIU GUOSONG, CHINA, B. 1932)

In Liu Kuo-Sung's decades of study in art, he invented many new materials and techniques, such as ink rubbing, tearing paper veins and water rubbing, and presented an unprecedented theme in Chinese art history which inherited the spirit of traditional landscape painting. In 1967, Liu Kuo-Sung finished his study in Europe and United States and returned. Afterwards, his works started to reflect a distinct change in the concept and techniques. In Canyon I (Lot 377), the conceptual extension of the blank space in traditional Chinese ink painting sometimes is a pure manifestation of abstractionism while sometimes becomes a medium of restoring sensory authenticity, so as to interpret the objective landscape into a representation of artist's subjective emotion. In regard to the background knowledge of this work, Liu Kuo-Sung obtained Asian Cultural Council Fellowship in the United States. And parents of the current collector, the owner of The Carmel Pine Cone, bought this piece through Laky Gallery shortly after the meeting with Liu Kuo-Sung at the Bay area of San Francisco.