This work is consistent with the artist's chosen medium and working method. It is in our opinion that the work is in very good condition.
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Returning to Native Soil: The Enlightenment of Folk Arts

In 1938, Ju Ming was born into a peasant family in Miaoli, Taiwan. He finished primary school and worked for a time as a shop assistant at a general goods store. Then, thanks to a recommendation from his father, he began studying traditional carving with Lee Chin-Chuan, who was restoring the Sea Goddess Temple in the nearby town of Tunghsiao. His apprenticeship lasted three years and four months. Lee Chin-Chuan taught Ju Ming traditional Taiwanese carving, which originates in Cantonese and Fujianese folk carving. The most traditional wood carving techniques included flower carving, burnishing, colouring, and gold tracery. In the late 1950s, Ju Ming briefly established a workshop that produced traditional carvings for the export market. In Post-World War II Taiwan, Western thought and Modernism were influential trends through the 1970s, when the political situation led to the rise of the nativist movement. This shift was also evident in a growing interest in folk arts, and the Taiwanese fine arts scene began to reflect the sentiments of the countryside. In 1971, in the second issue of Lion Art, Shiy De-Jinn published an essay,♔ titled “My Art and Taiwan”, that became the manifesto of the nativist movement. This movement corresponded with Ju Ming’s emergence, and he became its representative sculptor.

In 1968, when Ju Ming was 31 years old, he fulfilled his long-cherished wish to apprentice himself to Yuyu Yang and began his second term of discipleship. It was Yuyu Yang who changed his student’s name from Ju Chuan-Tai to Ju Ming. At the time, Ju Ming’s creative subjects were rich in native flavour: he carved farm animals, idols, and scenes of village life. His practice was based in traditional carving, and used coarse cutting methods to express authentic native sentiments in his images of Guan Yu, Confucius, and everyday workers. He often participated in provincial exhibitions, and although he repeatedly failed to win prizes, he was finally recognised with an award for Portrait of My Mother. However, winning prizes was not his ultimate goal. Under Yuyu Yang’s guidance, Ju Ming learned the importance of creating his own style. In 1976, Yuyu Yang shrewdly transferred his scheduled exhibition at the National Museum of History to Ju Ming, giving his student the opportunity to show a series of wood carvings with folk art qualities. Boosted by the context of the native culture movement, Ju Ming’s exhibition was well received. The cultural supplement of the China Times covered it for five days, running a total of thirteen articles that enthusiastically promoted this new wood-carving master who came from the people. According to Ju Ming’s own account, this exhibition was extended from five days to one month; then the museum moved it to a separate special exhibition space. In total, the exhibition lasted for a year. Ju Ming’s apprenticeship to Yuyu Yang ended in 1976, but their close student-teacher relationship endur🔥ed.

This special auction features two rare pairs of works, Rooster and Hen (Lot 1043, 1044), that originate in Ju Ming’s experience of rural life in his youth. The smaller of the two pairs vividly portrays a heartwarming scene of a rooster lowering his head in search of food while a hen gazes with tenderness upon a chick perched on her back; two other chicks near her feet lift their heads and stretch their necks. The larger pair of carvings was cut using an intentionally rougher technique. The valiant and spirited rooster appears to be in the midst of announcing the start of the day in his village. Ju Ming raised buffalos from a young age, and he once said that the buffalo was his favourite subject. Buffalo and Boy (Lot 1047), a sculpture made in 1994, returns to the themes of his na♚tivist period, reflecting the artist’s persisting interest in his origins.