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XIE ZHILIU Chinese 1910-1997 Watercolor Bird

Currency:USD Category:Antiques Start Price:200.00 USD Estimated At:600.00 - 900.00 USD
XIE ZHILIU Chinese 1910-1997 Watercolor Bird
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Watercolor and ink on paper, featuring bird and tree, signed and attr. Xie Zhiliu (Chinese, 1910-1997), inscribed with 1 artist seal, 91 x 34.5 cm, Xie Zhiliu was a native of Changzhou, a city with a strong tradition of bird-and-flower painting, a genre in which Xie excelled. Moving to Chongqing to escape the Japanese occupation in 1937, he became a close friend of a renowned painter Zhang Daqian (1899–1983), who introduced him to the Buddhist cave murals of the Silk Road oasis of Dunhuang. After the war, he became an advisor and preeminent connoisseur on painting and calligraphy for the Shanghai Museum as well as a professor of painting. Thanks to his access to the rich holdings of the museum, Xie expanded his style through the study of Tang, Song, and Yuan dynasty painting, a topic on which he published. Between 1983 and 1990 he led a team of scholars in evaluating the collections of China’s leading cultural institutions, which resulted in a twenty-four-volume illustrated index of more than seventy thousand paintings and calligraphies.