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Title

The great desert

1977

Artist

Wu Zuoren

China

1908 – 1997

No image

  • Details

    Other Titles
    Damo - great desert
    Camels in the Gobi Desert
    Damo (The great desert)
    大漠
    Place where the work was made
    China
    Date
    1977
    Media categories
    Scroll , Painting
    Materials used
    hanging scroll; ink on paper
    Dimensions
    69.0 x 45.7 cm image; 193.0 x 770 cm scroll
    Signature & date

    Signed and dated u.r., in Chinese, inscribed in black ink, “Zuoren…in 1977”.
    Signed u.r., in Chinese, stamped in red ink “Wu” [artist's seal].

    Credit
    Gift of Graham E. Fraser 1993
    Location
    Not on display
    Accession number
    591.1993
    Artist information
    Wu Zuoren

    Works in the collection

    1

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  • About

    ‘The work of Wu Zuoren exemplifies the way in which the traditional brush-and-ink technique of Chinese painting can be transformed into an entirely modern idiom. Wu studied with another of the great modern masters of Chinese painting, Xu Beihong, and then from 1930 to 1935 he studied and worked in France and Belgium. His distinctive use of broad wet brushstrokes in the ‘mogu hua’, or ‘boneless’ style, that is one worked in brush washes of ink rather than brush lines, hints at the Western styles that he would have absorbed while in Europe, like his mentor Xu Beihong. Wu is particularly renowned for his appealing images of camels, yaks, oxen and pandas and for his evocations of the Gobi desert.’

    ‘The Asian Collections: Art Gallery of New South Wales’. pg.171
    © 2003 Trustees, Art Gallery of New South Wales

  • Places

    Where the work was made

    China

  • Exhibition history

    Shown in 2 exhibitions

  • Bibliography

    Referenced in 5 publications