Loiseau, Schmitz, Digard, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, 18 June 1995, Lot 139
Private Collection
Ravenel, Taipei, 2 December 2007, Lot 53
Private Asian Collection
Christie’s, Hong Kong, 30 May 2010, Lot 1324
Asia Art Center, Taipei, 2014
Acquired directly from the above by the present important private Asian collector

Liege, Musée de Salle Georges, Chu Teh-Chun, November 25 - December 31, 1988

Chu Teh-chun, Musée d'Art Moderne de la ville de Liege, Liege, 1988, p. 22
Chu Teh-chun, Cercle d'Art, Paris, 1993, plate 54, p. 101

The work is overall in good condition and its original condition. There is no sign of restoration under UV light examination.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

"And God said, Let there be light: and there was light."
Genesis 1:3 Abstract art involves an in-depth dialogue between artist and viewer. A good abstract work allows the viewer to access the inner life of an artist and gain enlightenment and inspiration from the artist's unmediated and authentic expression. Infused with a literati sensibility, Chu Teh-Chun's abstract pictorial language demonstrates his profound understanding and internalisation of both Chinese and non-Chinese cultures. In the late 1980's, Chu enjoyed much success in both Asia and the West. In 1987, the National Museum of History in Taipei mounted his historic solo exhibition, which showcased his achievements for the first time since he moved to France thirty-two years ago. The works continued to travel across cultural centers in fourteen counties and cities in Taiwan. In the same year, Chu's work was included in historian George Rude's French Revolution, written to commemorate the two hundredth anniversary of the French Revolution, which marked Chu's recognition in his adopted homeland. At that year's end, Chu showed his large-scale oil paintings at the Musée d'Art Contemporain de la Ville de Liège. Among these was L'ombre S'eclaircit II (Lot 1039), a testament to its quality and importance in the eyes of the artist himself.

The light of philosophical wisdom

L'ombre S'eclaircit II demonstrates Chu Teh-Chun's artistic and conceptual maturity. Living between Eastern and Western cultures throughout his life, Chu never favoured one to the exclusion of the other and remained receptive to all cultural traditions. This is reflected in his art. Born into a traditional intellectual family, Chu studied Western painting at the National School of Fine Arts but never ceased to deepen his sinological knowledge outside his formal education. Living in France in the 1950's and 60's, Chu found inspiration in the work of the Russian-born painter Nicolas de Staël, and entered pictorial abstraction through Chinese calligraphic lines and the compositional structures of Chinese landscape paintings. In 1970, viewing works by Rembrandt and other old masters first-hand in Amsterdam, Chu Teh-Chun experienced a breakthrough in his abstract painting, sublimating the energetic clashing of lines and colour fields into poetic sceneries of ever-changing light and shadow. After the 1980's, drawing from his life experiences and his deepening intellectual cultivation, Chu expanded beyond poetic and emotional expressionism into conveying and embodying philosophical wisdom. The complex and infinitely subtly interfusion and interplay of light, shadow, and colours in L'ombre S'eclaircit II is markedly more advanced than Chu's previous works in terms of control of materials and composition. The painting has drawn further away from landscape models and reflects both Chu's indebtedness to the great cultural heritage of East Asian civilization and his transcendence of it. Here he has surmounted a summit and become the summit himself. Chu began to experiment with Rembrandtesque play of light and shadow in the 1970's, and afterwards gradually moved from creating dramatic tension with direct physical intervention towards the embodiment of awakening and wisdom. In the later works Chu seems to discover civilisation within primordial chaos and the flash of insight within the eternal darkness of ignorance. Shining in his paintings like red coral, cobalt, and gold, this philosophical light conveys to the viewer the hope and joy of original innocence.

To strengthen the effect of this philosophical light, Chu goes over the same passages repeatedly with a long-handled brush loaded with highly diluted oil pigments, resulting in infinitely rich layers and textures that are markedly different than the heaviness of his works from the 1960's and 70's. When we study the colour of this work, we realise that its ink-like surface is in fact not entirely black, but consists rather of many layers of deep blues and dark reds. When lit, the colours shine and shimmer with an inner glow. A testament to Chu's singular status in the 1980's, L'ombre S'eclaircit II is truly a landmark work.

Chu Teh-Chun's artistic breakthroughs in the 1980's were of course due in part to the wisdom of Asian classical philosophy. In particular, the Daoist philosophy of yin and yang was the conceptual foundation of his formal experimentations with light and shadow, and provided him a path between Asian philosophy and Western modernist visuality and pictorialism. At the same time, we should not neglect Chu's serious engagement with Western thought. During the exhibition of L'ombre S'eclaircit II in Liège, Chu participated also in La Passion de Dunkerque, an exhibition featuring 60 artists collaborating on the theme of the Passion of Christ at the Hôtel de Ville in Paris. This shows that Chu was equally drawn to Christian thought. Indeed, in 1993, only several years after L'ombre S'eclaircit II, he created Genèse, a painting with a similar palette and composition based on the Bible. Both measuring 100 cm on the long side, L'ombre S'eclaircit II and Genèse are respectively vertical and horizontal compositions. The latter is more relaxed, while the earlier work is structurally denser, reflecting the artist's tremendous creative energy and will to challenge and exceed himself.