Literature
Born:
February 22, 1906
Gee Village (now called Chu Village),
Yanglu Town, Kaiping County, Guangdong Province, China
Died:
June 5, 1963, New York City
Residences:
1906-21 Yanglu
1921-27 San Francisco
1927-30 Paris
1930-36 New York
1936-39 Paris
1939-63 New York
Education:
1925, California School of Fine Arts, San Francisco
(now the San Francisco Art Institute)
Yun Gee (Gee Wing Yun) was born in 1906 to Gee Quong On and Wong See in a village near Canton, China. His father, a merchant and entrepreneur, spent much of his time in San Francisco. In 1921, Yun Gee joined Gee Quong On in America. His mother remained in China with Yun’s siblings; he would never see her again. His father’s claim that records of his American citizenship had burned in the 1906 earthquake enabled Yun Gee to obtain his own U.S. citizenship.
Gee settled on the fringes of Chinatown, and enrolled at the California School of Fine Arts (now the San Francisco Art Institute). There, he studied both painting and drawing with Otis Oldfield, who was to remain a life-long friend. Oldfield’s Cézanne-inspired paintings would come to inform Gee’s aesthetic. Lessons in forming volume from areas of contrasting warm and cool colors resonated through his work for the rest of his life. Gottardo Piazzoni also contributed to Gee’s education in painting, and made a lasting impression on the young artist.
Gee found camaraderie with members of the San Francisco avant-garde such as poet Kenneth Rexroth, critic Jehanne Bietry-Salinger, and artists John Ferren, Otis Oldfield, Dorr Bothwell, and Ruth Cravath. A group of artists, Gee and Oldfield among them, established the Modern Gallery on Montgomery Street in 1926, which would ultimately become the San Francisco Art Center. Also in 1926, Gee formed the Chinese Revolutionary Artist’ Club, where he offered classes in advanced painting techniques and theory. It is likely that the first terms of Gee’s theory of “Diamondism” were developed during this period as teaching aids. This set of strategies for art making would come to encompass the spiritual, intellectual, and practical aspects of painting. The doctrines of Diamondism reflect Gee’s fascination with the process of perception, and the possibility/impossibility of absolute truth.
Gee moved to Paris in 1927 under the patronage of Prince and Princess Achille Murat. He became intimate with prominent members of the Parisian avant-garde, exhibiting his work alongside well-known painters of the day at the Salon des Indépendants. Works from this period were exhibited in a solo exhibition at Galerie Bernheim-Jeune in 1929. Gee was heavily influenced by both Eastern and Western poetry, often accompanying paintings with original compositions. These poems combined the Chinese philosopher’s love of word-play with the more contemporary influences of poets such as Gertrude Stein. Taoist themes often ran through both his writing and painting from this period
Shortly after he arrived in Paris, Yun Gee was introduced to the poetess Princess Paule de Ruess, and in 1930, they married. This union caused great strife for the princess, who was disowned by both her family and friends. That same year, Yun Gee left Paris to return to New York alone. They were subsequently divorced in 1932.
In New York, Yun Gee experienced discrimination unlike anything felt in Paris. He described the feeling of overwhelming alienation thusly:
… still floating from the reception and kindness of Paris, I came to New York… . Here the scene changed to indifference…. I was no longer an artist. I was an oriental from Chinatown… and I suppose the interpretation of such a person was that he was only a launderer or a restauranteur… and this was hardly the reception I expected in my own country. … the name for the Chinese in this city was “Charlie,” an unfair interpretation of the many distinguished Chinese families who aided in making America grow… . After dragging through this moral muck for five years, I decided to return to Paris.
(quoted by Brodsky in Benton exhibition catalogue, p. 28, excerpted from “Yun Gee Speaks his Mind.” Gee wrote these words in the 1940s, after he had returned to New York for the second time… talking about his first New York period.)
Despite his inclusion in exhibitions at the Brooklyn Museum in 1931, and at the Museum of Modern Art in 1932, Gee struggled greatly throughout the Depression. Remaining closely involved with the Chinese community, Gee was an active fundraiser for causes in China. He completed a large mural on K Street as a contribution to the Chinese Flood Relief Campaign. He participated in art programs sponsored by the WPA, such as the Easel Painter’s Project. From this period onward, Gee would sporadically produce paintings and drawings with overtly political subject matter. One of his paintings included in MoMA’s Murals by American Painters and Photographers is considered to be his masterwork. Wheels: Industrial New York did not fit neatly into the late Futurist or the Social Realist camp, but rather created a dynamic synthesis of cubist influences and an ironic sense of realism.
In 1936, Gee returned to Paris, where he felt more accepted and appreciated. During his second period in France, he received much acclaim and his work was exhibited widely, most notably at the Galerie Lion d’Or in Lausanne, the Salon des Indépendants in Paris, and in two major one-man exhibitions at the Galerie à la Reine Margot in Paris. World War II spurred Gee to return to New York in 1939. There he married Helen Wimmer in 1942, with whom he had a daughter, Li-lan. Gee and Wimmer were separated in 1945 and divorced in 1947. The work of his later years was eclectic, exhibiting both Parisian and Asian influences, with a small number of works indicating a movement towards an abstract expressionist manner. In the final years of his life, Gee’s battle with alcoholism had begun to take its toll. In 1950, Gee met Velma Aydelott, who would remain his devoted companion until his death from stomach cancer in 1963.
Throughout his life, Yun Gee tirelessly investigated all avenues of creative expression. He played numerous traditional Chinese instruments, and explored both the aesthetic and scientific connections of sound to visual art. He had an abiding interest in theater and dance, and both performed and participated in the mounting of pieces for the stage. Perhaps most notably, he wrote the script and designed the puppets and set for “Kuan Chung’s Generosity”, a WPA Theater Project in the early 1930s. He danced at venues such as The Brooklyn Museum and The Institute of Chinese Studies. Gee was also an inventor, entrepreneur, chess-player, collector and bird-watcher. He seemed to reach out in all directions to investigate and discover all life had to offer. Although he is most widely known as a painter, Yun Gee approached every aspect of his life with artistry.
