Chen Ying-Teh

Born in 1940 in Taiwan where he graduated from the University of Fine Arts, Chen Ying-Teh (陳英德) moved to Paris in 1969. There, he started to paint Blue China as a counterpoint to Mao’s Red China, in the midst of a cultural revolution at that time. On his canvas, he portrayed soldiers, builders, workers, families and babies in a blue, mysterious atmosphere, expressing the universality of the human being in his solitude.

The renowned Parisian gallerist Iris Clert, whose gallery became an avant-garde hotspot in the international art scene, exhibited « La Chine Bleue » (Blue China) in 1974/1975 in her Parisian gallery then at the FIAC in 1976, launching the recognition of Chen’s work and its mark in the history of contemporary art. “Chen’s painting comes from the depths of time. His brushwork is directed by heredity. His hieratic, motionless characters emerge from a temporal world to settle in eternity.The burning coldness of his blues as much as his technical perfection provoke a kind of ecstasy” said Iris Clert.