Lot Essay

Shi Hu's painting, in terms of material and technique, marks him as both an international artist and an ink painter in the Chinese tradition. In Untitled he applies the Chinese ink Mogu ('boneless') technique, in which the outline is absent, overlaying it with a lyrical calligraphic line both solid and scratched-out. His fascination with pictographs and their relationship to folk art can be seen in the simplification of form. Shi started to move from the Five Tints of ink colour to engage with polychromy in the early 1990s when he absorbed modernist and abstract Western idioms, and this can be seen in the drenched, layered, block-like applications of colour that coexist with the ink painting techniques in Untitled.

In terms of motifs, Shi Hu consistently favours the figure, both human and animal, within themes that include mythologies, states of emotion, and concepts of being. Frequently embracing sexuality within figurative works, in Untitled we see a state of union between the two bodies of the protagonists. Ecstatic display is expressed through the literal motif but the dominance of the grid-like structure limits movement; instead, energy is signified by facial expression and the potency of colour.

This work, executed around 1993, is striking in its similarity of technique and warm palette to Heaven, the 2017 ink and colour on paper artwork sold at Sotheby's Hong Kong on 11 November, 2024. The latter achieved the second-highest price for a work by Shi Hu, with a premium-inclusive price of HKD7,800,000/ US$1 million. Works on paper by Shi Hu are the most prevalent and sought after in his practice, which also included oils on canvas, reflecting the art historical significance of ink painting in Chinese art production and collecting.

Biography
Born in Hebei Province, China, Shi Hu's career exemplified the fusion between fine art and craft practices. He first studied at the Beijing School of Arts and Crafts, where he later taught, and then the Zhejiang Fine Arts Institute. Working with ivory as a carver as well as mastering lacquer techniques from the late 1960s, he applied his graphic design skills to his role as art director of the People’s Fine Arts Publishing House in Beijing. It was only after a tour of Africa in 1978, during which time he visited 13 different countries and subsequently published his sketches from the trip, that he took the leap to become a full-time professional artist.

From the mid-80s onwards he exhibited widely, with solo shows that included major showings at the National Art Museum of China, Beijing; the Shenzhen Art Museum; The Cultural Affairs Bureau in Macau; the National Museum of Indonesia, Jakarta; the Yangtze River Gallery, Toronto, Canada: and the Chinese Chamber of Commerce in Singapore. He also participated in group shows in the United States. Spending significant periods of time in Macau and Guangdong province, he was sponsored for a visit to Bali to paint in 2000.

The close interaction between literature and painting in Chinese traditional practice is evident in Shi Hu’s work as a writer and poet. He published a series of metaphysical essays in 1996 – the same year that he became the Chair of the Society of Chinese Artists Worldwide – and collections of his poems and paintings were published in the last two decades of his life.