Chang Dai-chien

Born in Neijiang, Sichuan in 1899^[1], Chang trained under Zeng Xi and Li Ruiqing in Shanghai after a brief period studying textile dyeing in Kyoto. He spent the 1920s and 1930s building a reputation as a painter of exceptional technical skill: landscapes, lotus flowers, and figure studies executed with complete command of the guohua tradition. His unmatched eye for old masters also translated into a sideline producing works that fooled leading dealers and scholars alike.

The years at Dunhuang from 1940^[1] to 1943 transformed his understanding of Chinese art at its source. He documented hundreds of Tang dynasty murals in meticulous copies, work combining archaeological seriousness with physical hardship in the remote Gobi Desert. The French government had recognised his gifts as early as 1933, purchasing a work from his Paris exhibition that year.

In the late 1950s, after leaving China for Hong Kong, then Brazil, then California, Chang developed his "pocai" or splashed-colour technique: pools of ink and pigment allowed to bleed and settle before he drew in defining forms. The results read simultaneously as abstract expressionism and classical Chinese ink painting. He settled in Taiwan in his final years, completing "Peach Blossom Spring" shortly before his death in Taipei in 1983^[1], a painting that brought the splash idiom back to the classical landscape tradition.