Label Type
Mystery MondayLabel
Continuing our celebration of Asian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, can you guess this 20th century painter? Come back later today to see the answer.
This one was tricky – the artist is Yu-Zhang Cui 崔玉章 (1924-2021). Cui was an influential 20th century watercolor artist mostly known for his Western style paintings. This watercolor is a traditional shuǐ-mò 水墨 (water and ink) landscape featuring the use of negative space, graceful lines, expressive brushwork, and the strategic application of color. In China landscape painting is considered the highest genre of painting and was one of the four great arts of the aristocratic literati.
Cui taught painting at Southeast University in Nanjing, China from 1949 until his death in 2021 at the age of 98. In 1988 Purdue University held a solo exhibition of his work and he kindly gifted this painting to the collection. Professor Ai-jen Wann in the Chinese Language department generously translated the inscription. The text reads 豫章一九八八年, “Yuzhang 1988,” the location and date of the work, and the stamp is 崔豫章印, “painted by Yu-Zhang Cui.”
Title: Summer in the Mountains
Artist: Yu-Zhang Cui 崔玉章 (1924-2021), Chinese
Date: 1988
Medium: Watercolor on paper
Technique: Painting
Accession number: 1988.22