Fu Baoshi (1904-1965) China, datiert 1963 69,5 x 34,7 cm Scholar Gazing at a Waterfall. Hanging Scroll, ink and light colors on paper. Signature by the artist: „In the ninth month of autumn in the guimao year (1963) painted in Jinling (Nanjing) by Baoshi“. Two seals by the artist: „Private seal of Baoshi“ (Baoshi siyin), “guimao”. From the collection of an important German scholar, assembled in China between 1961 and 1966 Fu Baoshi was born into a poor peasant family but became interested in painting and seal carving when working in a porcelain shop. In 1933 he managed to be sent to Japan to study Chinese Art at the Art Academy in Tokyo. Back to China he became Professor at the National Central University in Nanjing. During the war he went together with the university to Chongqing in Sichuan where he worked in a small room without a window completing nearly one hundred paintings. In 1957 he was made director of the Painting Academy of Jiangsu province and was commissioned to paint the large landscape in the Hall of the People in Peking in 1959. In 1961 he participated in a travelling tour to the famous mountains like the Changbai shan in Chinas Northeast where he was especially impressed by the spectacular waterfalls like that of the Jingpo Lake. He did many paintings of these falls in the following years and this scroll shows such a composition by him.