Wu Guanzhong: Beauty Beyond Form from National Gallery Singapore

This inaugural exhibition celebrates the opening of the Wu Guanzhong Gallery at National Gallery Singapore. Spanning over 50 years of Wu’s career, this show features both oil and ink works, many of which will be on display for the first time in Singapore, including the artist’s personal favorite Twin Swallows. Wu Guanzhong (1919–2010) was a major advocate and forerunner of synthesizing Chinese art and Western modernism. This show highlights his proficiency in both Chinese and Western art traditions, and his distinctive contribution to the discourse of modern Chinese painting. “To indigenize oil painting and to modernize Chinese painting,” he said, “are two sides of the same face.”

The Wu Guanzhong Gallery is named in honor of a significant gift of 113 works by Wu to Singapore. This collection is the largest holding of his works in a public collection, and is one of the most valuable art donations ever presented to a museum in Singapore. 

Some of the works in this exhibition are from Hong Kong Museum of Art, National Art Museum of China (Beijing), China Art Museum (Shanghai), Nanjing Museum and Zhejiang Provincial Museum (Hangzhou). The exhibition is through May 3, 2016.