QIU DESHU (b.1948) Self Portrait (Spirit), 1997QIU DESHU (b.1948)Self Portrait (Spirit), 1997Ink and acrylic on xuan paper and mounted on canvas, signed and dated 1997 in Chinese. 180cm high x 360cm wide (70 3/4in high x 141 1/2in wide) 仇德樹(1948年生) 自畫像（靈魂） 水墨丙烯宣紙 裱於畫布 1997年作 Published, Illustrated and Exhibited: Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, China Onward: the Estella Collection, Chinese Contemporary Art 1966-2006, Humlebaek, 2007, pp.232-233. Chinese Ink Painting Now, New York, 2010, p.82.Michael Goedhuis, Qiu Deshu, London, 2012, pp.40-41.Michael Goedhuis, Ink: The Art of China, Saatchi Gallery, London, 2012, pp.168-169. 展覽著錄：路易斯安納現代藝術博物館編, 《China Onward: the Estella Collection, Chinese Contemporary Art 1966-2006》，胡姆勒拜克，2007年，第232-233頁。《當代中國水墨畫》，紐約，2010年，第82頁。Michael Goedhuis編, 《仇德樹》，倫敦，2012年，第40-41頁。Michael Goedhuis編, 《Ink: The Art of China》, 薩奇美術館, 倫敦, 2012年, 第168-169頁. Qiu Deshu, born in Shanghai in 1948, was one of the earliest artists on the mainland to receive international recognition in the post Mao era. As a child he studied traditional ink painting and seal carving, but his interest in the traditional arts was interrupted by the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, during which he was sent to work at the Number Eighteen Shanghai Plastics Factory. At the close of that tumultuous period, he rededicated himself to art and co-founded the Grass Painting Society (Cao cao hua she 草草画社), one of the first experimental art groups in the late 70s. However, his interest in abstraction was deemed too 'bourgeois' and he was ordered to cease painting during the Anti-Spiritual Pollution Campaign of 1983. It was around this time that he developed his signature style of tearing paper, called 'fissuring' (liebian 裂变).'Fissuring', which in Chinese literally means tearing (裂) and change (变), indicates both the dramatic changes and breaks in his own life as well as that of a rapidly changing Chinese society. His creative process begins with painting vivid colours on traditional Chinese xuan paper, tearing it, and then sticking selected pieces to a base layer using the techniques traditionally employed in mounting Chinese paintings. When spaces show between the mounted torn papers they read as fissures or cracks. Abrading or burnishing the paper, or mounting white paper on top of colours, produces additional effects: the final work is a sophisticated combination of painting and collage.The present lot, his self-portrait, is merged with a rocky landscape, not only reflecting the fissures and dramatic disruptions fragmenting his life, but also his unity with the ever-changing universe. As an expression of his place within this ongoing cosmos in flux, Qiu created his unique Self-Portrait (Spirit), a landscape in which facial features emerge from the mountain formations to suggest the presence of the artist's human spirit.Qiu Deshu's works are in numerous museum collections including the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; M+ Museum, Hong Kong; Shanghai Art Museum, China; Asian Art Museum, South Korea; Taichung Provincial Art Museum, Taiwan; Linden Museum, Germany; Seoul Maili Art Museum, Korea; and Shenzhen Art Museum, China.