TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Two works by a female founding member of Taiwan's Fifth Moon Group, artist Li Fangzhi (李芳枝), will be presented for the first time in the U.K. at the Whitechapel Gallery in London on Feb. 9, per UDN.
Her paintings "Untitled" (1969) and "Autumn" (1968) have been included in a major retrospective covering women artists' involvement in the Abstract Expressionist movement, an artistic movement that had previously been synonymous with white, male painters.
The exhibition features well-known American artists such as Lee Krasner (1908-1984) and Helen Frankenthaler (1928-2011). However, the exhibition aims for a broader reach in its pursuit of gender equality, choosing representative works from as far abroad as Central America and Asia.
Taiwan’s contribution is Li Fangzhi, who passed away at the age of 87 in Dec. 2020. She is best known as being a co-founder of the “Fifth Moon Group,” a collective of painters dissatisfied with the conservative instruction they received at National Taiwan Normal University’s (國立臺灣師範大學) Fine Arts Department in the mid-1950’s. In response, they hosted their own exhibit which included works by Liu Kuo-sung (劉國松), Kuo Yu-Lun (郭豫倫), Kuo Tung-Jung (郭東榮), and others.
Each member of the Fifth Moon Group embraced an experimental spirit, and sought to integrate Eastern and Western artistic techniques into their works, such as Fauvism, Cubism, Futurism, among other influences. This helped the group become an important and influential art movement in Taiwan, ushering in avante-garde and modernism.
Li's paintings are distinctly modern in her choice of mediums, such as watercolor and oil, though she still managed to retain traditional ink and wash techniques. Li also showed a preference for using thick rice paper for the creation of watercolor paintings, combining transparent watercolor and calligraphic lines, according to the Taipei Representative Office in the U.K. Cultural Division, per the UDN report.
The Whitechapel Gallery in London's East End has held several important international exhibitions, including Pablo Picasso's famous anti-war painting "Guernica” as well as representative works of cultural and artistic movements such as Pop Art.
From Feb. 9 to May 7 it will host "Action, Gesture, Paint: Women Artists and Global Abstraction 1940-70," presenting more than 150 paintings by 80 female artists from different countries. The special exhibition will later tour to France and Germany.
