Chapter Seven The Beiping years: patronage and artistic experimentation Relatively few dated paintings from Huang Binhong’s early years in Beiping have been published.1 (Figure 7.1) In a letter to Huang Jusu, written in 1939, the artist indicated that he had few paintings in his possession. Many, he said, had been lost or stolen in his move from south to north and in the chaos that came with the Sino-Japanese war and the Japanese occupation.2 So deeply concerned was he about the preservation of his paintings, that in 1938 he deposited a group of important works in a temple in Jinhua, his birthplace.3 Of the published paintings, many that date from the 1940s were painted for Huang Jusu, Wu Ming 吳 鳴, and Liu Zuochou (劉 作 籌, Low Chuck-tiew, 1911-1993).4 At the time Huang Jusu was living in Hong Kong, Liu Zuochou in Singapore and Wu Liang in Macau. These three men were among Huang’s most important patrons. The many letters that they exchanged with Huang Binhong indicate a genuine and intense interest in his art and continuing financial support of his creative practice.5 Huang Binhong regularly sent them paintings, sometimes singly and at other times in bundles. Sometimes the paintings were intended for them, or were 1 See Huang Binhong xiansheng hua ji (Hong Kong: Da Gong Bao, 1961) plates 25-44 for the period 1937 to 1939; Chu, ed., Homage to Tradition, plate 16, for a 1938 album of Huangshan. 2 Huang Binhong, letter to Huang Jusu, [1939], Huang Binhong wenji, shuxin bian, p.230. 3 Huang Binhong, letter to Chen Zhu, undated, and Huang Binhong letter to Huang Jusu, [1939], Huang Binhong wenji, shuxin bian, pp.125, 230. In the letter to Huang Jusu Huang said that he wanted to stay in Jinhua, but returned north to avoid the humidity. 4 Wu Ming was from Guangdong. He studied western medicine and operated a business in Macau. He had previously studied painting with Huang Binhong. Liu Zuochou was born in Guangdong, but from an early age lived in Singapore. He studied economics at Jin’nan University in Shanghai and studied painting after classes with Huang. After graduating in 1936 he returned to Singapore and did not resume contact with Huang Binhong until 1946. In 1949 (Huang’s letter implies 1948) he was appointed Manager of the Four Seas Communication Bank Ltd. in Hong Kong (Sihaitong yinhang). See Chu, ed., Homage to Tradition, pp.21-23. See also Huang Binhong, letter to Huang Jusu, Huang Binhong wenji, shuhua bian, p.246. Other important patrons/collectors living outside China include Tang Tianru and Chen Jingzhao (1907- 1972). Many works dedicated to Tang dated from 1929 to 1940 are included in Huang Binhong xiansheng huaji (Hong Kong: Da Gong Bao, 1961). Chen Jingzhao lived in Macau. His collection was recently auctioned in Beijing. See Zhongguo jinxiandai shuhua, Zhongguo Jiade 2004 qiuji paimaihui (China Guardian auction), Beijing 16 May 2004, vol.2, lots 793-795, 799-802, 806-817. 5 Huang Binhong wenji, shuxin bian includes fifteen letters to Wu Ming, forty-five letters to Huang Jusu, and three letters to Liu Zuochou. 196 commissions for close friends and colleagues who formed part of their intellectual network. Huang, Wu and Liu reciprocated by remitting payment to him. The transactions were part of a gentlemen’s agreement that satisfied their shared interest in art and supplemented Huang’s income from teaching and writing. A letter to Huang Jusu, thought to date from 1942, provides insight into Huang Binhong’s attitude to selling paintings. Huang comments that even though he has a price list, set by a friend more than ten years earlier, he is not willing to sell paintings for a living. “Old price list attached, there is no new one”, he adds in a postscript suggesting that he has sent it to Huang Jusu as a reference guide.6 Huang Binhong wished to maintain a scholarly distance from purely commercial transactions and distinguished himself from professional artists who painted for a living.7 Money is a frequent topic of discussion, however, in the artist’s many letters to Huang Jusu and his other friends and patrons. It is clear that the gentlemanly transactions were central to Huang Binhong’s livelihood at that time. “With regard to your generous remuneration [hui run 惠 潤], for the time being please give it to [my son] Yongming” Huang Binhong writes to Huang Jusu … . “I will paint the album first. The horizontal work has already been sent”.8 Huang sent a large number of paintings to Huang Jusu and to Wu Ming and Liu Zuochou and they repaid him with funds that, with the inflation of the war years and the period immediately thereafter, still did not suffice. In letter written to Bao Junbai (鮑 君 白, 1905- 1951),9 a friend from Shexian, in 1946, Huang confided: The cost of living gets higher every day, so much so that things are many times more expensive than they were. I am far away and impoverished. While I have benefited from the deep friendship of family and friends, it is still a case of “looking at the plum blossom to quench one’s thirst” … . Friends from Guangdong request the most 6 Huang Binhong, letter to Huang Jusu, dated 21 March [1942], Huang Binhong wenji, shuxin bian, pp.239-240. 7 For details of Huang Binhong’s known price lists, which date from 1909, 1923, 1924, 1931 and 1945, see Wang Zhongxiu, Mao Ziliang, Chen Hui, eds., Jianxiandai jinshi shuhua jia runlie (Shanghai: Shanghai shuhua chubanshe, 2004), pp.87, 127, 147, 269, 326. 8 At the time Huang Binhong’s eldest son Huang Yongming lived in Hong Kong and worked as the head of the printing department at the Commercial Press. See Huang Binhong, letter to Huang Jusu, undated, Huang Binhong wenji, shuxin bian, p.232. 9 Bao Junbai was from Yansi in Shexian. In 1927 he began to study painting with Huang and in 1933 graduated from the Shanghai Art College. During the Japanese occupation he helped Huang Binhong sell paintings to support his family. Bao lived in Shanghai until he became ill and in 1948 returned to live in Shexian. Bao Yilai, letter to the author, 13 July 2004. 197 paintings, but what I get from them is not enough to feed a family of eight. They are sincere, but it is risible, and my friends are tired and running all over the place, with letters going backwards and forwards. It is exhausting and expensive and I do not know how to repay their kindness.10 Huang Binhong also supplemented the income he received from teaching positions by selling historic works of art from his personal collection.11 Huang Jusu Huang Binhong’s relationship with Huang Jusu was of particular significance. Huang Jusu admired Huang’s art and was determined to collect his work and at the same time offer financial support. In a letter that probably dates from the early 1940s Jusu offered to help Huang Binhong financially by selling his own collection of antique paintings. In exchange he hoped that Huang Binhong would create for him an archival record of the best of his artistic practice, representing different formats, artistic styles and subject matter. Having passed the age of seventy, Huang was in his artistic prime, according to Chinese belief, and Jusu realised that his paintings would only get better.12 Huang Jusu’s collection—the largest and most important collection of Huang Binhong paintings with an established provenance outside mainland China—shows that he did indeed collect the late paintings in a systematic and comprehensive manner.13 Huang Jusu commented in one letter that he has only received a handscroll and an album that year and that if there is time he would like Huang Binhong to paint him two hanging scrolls, “one complex brush stroke and one simplified … then this year I would have a complete set”.14 Huang Jusu’s wish to create a comprehensive collection of Huang Binhong’s late paintings would have appealed to the artist’s own interest in securing his posthumous reputation. As he grew older Huang Binhong’s gaze settled not only on the past of Chinese art, 10 Huang Binhong, letter to Bao Junbai, 21 May [1946], Huang Binhong wenji, shuxin bian, p.356. 11 Huang Binhong, letter to Fu Lei, Huang Binhong wenji, shuxin bian, p.217. 12 Huang Jusu, letter to Huang Binhong, undated, 9 pages (ZPM 4024). 13 Huang Jusu’s collection, which after his death was maintained by his daughter Huang Changling and her husband, the late Qian Xuewen in Hong Kong, is said to number some 600 paintings. It includes Wu Ming’s collection of 300 to 400 Huang Binhong paintings, which was acquired by Qian after Wu’s death. 14 Huang Jusu, letter to Huang Binhong, 29 December, no year, 5 pages (ZPM 4025). 198 but also on the future of his own name. Jusu’s support made the artist even more conscious that he was contributing to a collection against which he would be judged in years to come. A handscroll, painted for Huang Jusu in 1940, begins with the inscription “So dry the autumn wind will crack, but moisture also contains spring rain” (Gan ke lie qiu feng, run yi han qunyu 漧 可 裂 秋 風 潤 亦 含 春 雨).15 (Figure 7.2) The painting, executed in scorched ink (jiao mo), features an empty pavilion and a solitary figure seated gazing from his studio into barren wintry surrounds.