Lot 20: Huang Banruo (1901-1968) Ladies and Guqin

Huang Banruo (1901-1968)
Ladies and Guqin
Ink and colour on silk, signed by the artist reading Huang Banruo fang Ma Yuan ben (Huang Banruo painted after Ma Yuan's style), with one collector's seal reading Lishi Shiyou jiancang, framed and glazed.
126cm (49 3/4in) long x 51cm (20in) wide.
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This painting depicts a lady sitting in front of a black-lacquered guqin while being served by a young attendant holding a red tray with an incense burner beneath two high palm trees; another lady walking to her in a red-fenced garden decorated with rocks and camellias, the artist's signature in the lower section of the palm tree.
Huang Banruo, or Wong Po-Yeh in Cantonese, was a leading artist in Guangzhou and Hong Kong in the first half of the 20th century. His career started in 1923, when he joined the traditionalist camp of Zhao Haogong, Pan He and others in the Guihai Painting Cooperative. A key member of the largest art group in southern China, Huang engaged Gao Jianfu's students in a series of debates in the press. The latter was considered as the vanguard of modernism in Chinese art, while Huang stood on the side of tradition. A traditionalist but never a conservative, Huang devoted his life to the reformation of traditional Chinese painting. He moved to Hong Kong permanently in 1949, then became active in organising exhibitions, teaching students and helping local museums expand their collections. His contribution to modern Chinese art was further recognised at a national level after his death when the China Artist's Association held a conference accompanying an exhibition of The World of Wong Po-yeh at the National Art Museum of China in Beijing in 1997.
Li Shiyou (also known as Jack Lee, 1916-2015), a native of Taishan, Guangzhou, studied in Lingnan University and moved to Hong Kong after the Second World War. He was the founder of Orient-City, the largest Chinese club in Hong Kong before the 1990s, and was well known for his collection of modern Cantonese art works.
黃般若（1901-1968），名鑑波，字般若，號萬千，別號四無恙齋主，東莞人。1923年，年僅二十二歲的黃般若參加趙浩公、潘龢等人的傳統派陣營「癸亥合作社」。一九二五年「合作社」擴大為「國畫研究會」，成為當時華南最大的美術團體。稍後他更作為「國畫研究會」的主將，與高劍父的學生展開筆戰。1949年黃氏定居港，他積極參與本地的文藝活動，組織大、小展覽數十個，並參加「圓社」、「丙申社」、「庚子書畫會」等，復於《星島日報》、《華僑日報》、《大公報》等報刊發表文章。1997年，北京中國美術館舉辦了「黃般若的藝術世界」展覽，並由中國美術家協會主辦了一次高層次的研討會。中國藝術界... For further information on this lot please visit the Bonhams website