1980, watercolor, signed in Chinese together with the artist's red seal to right hand side of image, signed in English and dated to lower left corner of image, handscroll format with seal script title page, watercolor painting of geese flying over water, and colophon with calligraphy from Chang Chung-yuan's book Creativity and Taoism where he quotes an eighth-century Buddhist monk, "The wild geese fly across the long sky above. Their image is reflected upon the chilly water below The geese do not mean to cast their images on the water; nor does the water mean to hold the image of the geese," with silk brocade mounting, comes together with a presentation box.

Title 17 5/8 x 52 in., Painting 17 5/8 x 150 in., Colophon 17 5/8 x 59 in.

Gifted to the Columbus Museum in Columbus, GA by the artist in 1989, the same year the museum organized a solo exhibition of Chen's work. In the exhibition catalog East Meets West: Chen Chi Watercolors, this painting is discussed by the artist in an interview at the beginning of the catalog.

Chen Chi (1912–2005) was a renowned Chinese painter who became a United States citizen, where he lived and worked for much of his career. He said of his paintings that they did not reflect the actual appearance of an object, but rather how his heart viewed an object, the being or essence, not just the physical appearance, as with geese in this watercolor painting.

Chi was born in Wuxi, Jiangsu, China in 1912. He taught painting at the Wu Pen and Huai Chiu high schools for girls from 1938 to 1944, and at the St. John's University School of Architecture in Shanghai from 1942 to 1946. He first began exhibiting his work in annual art exhibitions in Shanghai in 1940. In 1947 Chi relocated to the United States through a cultural exchange program to paint and exhibit his work. His first one-man show in the United States was at the Village Art Center in New York City in 1947. Chi lived and worked at the National Arts Club in New York for 40 years.

Chi's works have been shown extensively throughout the United States, including at the Portland Museum of Art in Maine, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Charles and Emma Frye Art Museum, and the Witte Memorial Museum, among many others. He has earned many awards and memberships for his artwork. He was the first living Chinese artist to be honored with a one-man retrospective of at Versailles, in conjunction with the first World Cultural Summit in June 2000.

The Chen Chi Art Museum opened in Shanghai in 1999, on the campus of Shanghai Jiao Tong University, to display Chen Chi’s works and promote an international exchange of art and education. The museum was dedicated by China’s President, Jiang Zemin, an avid collector of Chi's paintings, who wrote the dedicatory inscription “Chen Chi Art Museum” as an act of personal respect and tribute to the artist. A smaller Chen Chi Museum was also opened in his birthplace of Wuxi. Later that year, Chi was invited to create a special work to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the People's Republic of China.

Very good condition.

$8,000 - 12,000