Lonely Together
Dateca. 1970
Label TextAn enormous floating rock is home to a two-story building amidst trees. Two boats are about to meet, as if in mid-air. A prolific, idiosyncratic painter from southern China, Ding Yanyong was known for his quirky and lively style. He was an important advocate of modern Chinese art as an oil painter, seal carver, and art educator. Influenced by Henri Matisse and André Derain, he called himself “Matisse of the East” but later turned exclusively to ink brush painting.
Ding and several of his contemporaries, such as Qi Baishi (see adjacent painting), took inspiration from Bada Shanren (1626–1705), but Ding turned Bada’s psychological drama into whimsy. This work is dedicated to his own disciple and expresses their closeness with a ditty that ends, “The lone skiffs going back and forth are lonely together.”
Object number2022.5.1
ProvenanceThe artist; to his student, Huang Dingxian 黃定賢; [Jehu Gallery, San Francisco, California], by 1980; purchased from gallery by Wylie Wong (Wang Shangyi 王商一), San Francisco, California, 1980; to Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, Washington, 2022
Exhibition HistorySan Francisco, California, Jehu Gallery, [solo exhibition], 1980.
Seattle, Washington, Seattle Asian Art Museum, Boundless: Stories of Asian Art, Feb. 8, 2020 - ongoing [on view July 28, 2022 - Jan. 8, 2023].Credit LineGift of Wylie Wong in memory of Lilly Wong-Lee
DimensionsOverall: 80 x 32 1/4 in. (203.2 x 81.9 cm)
Painting: 36 x 26 1/2 in. (91.4 x 67.3 cm)
Installed: 81 3/8 x 34 3/4 in. (206.69 x 88.25)
MediumInk and color on paper, lacquered wood rod
ca. 1766-68
Object number: 2013.31.4
log in
