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The Art of Qin Wei, A Chinese “National Treasure”, c1930-1980s

Currency:USD Category:Art Start Price:4,000.00 USD Estimated At:5,000.00 - 10,000.00 USD
The Art of Qin Wei, A Chinese “National Treasure”, c1930-1980s
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The Art of Qin Wei, A Chinese “National Treasure”, c1930-1980s
The John Colling Private Collection of China Treasures;
Artwork by master watercolorist, Qin Wei
By Amy Baker, Fred Holabird, copyright 2024

Introduction

Chinese Artist Qin Wei (1911-1994) was considered a National Treasure during his lifetime, for his artistic skill and contribution to China’s art movement in the decades leading up to China’s Cultural Revolution. Qin Wei’s art is relatively unknown in the West. Qin Wei achieved prominence and great respect in China and his work is worthy of attention by the international art community. It is only due to the effort of one man, John G. Colling, that art aficionados have been afforded the rare opportunity to bring Qin Wei’s beautiful watercolors to the public art market for the first time. With special thanks to the family of John Colling, Holabird Western Americana is proud to offer for the first time the John Colling Private Collection of China Treasures; Artwork by master watercolorist, Qin Wei.
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The Artist, Qin Wei

Qin Wei was born in Cheng’an, Hebei Province and studied western painting at the Art College of Beijing University in the 1930s. He attended Tokyo Empire Art School from 1934-1936. There he met politically controversial, Chinese drama activist and playwright, Tian Han (1898-1968), for whom Qin Wei designed stage art. Tian Han joined the Chinese Communist Party in 1932 and his work played an influential role in the years leading up to the Chinese Cultural Revolution (1966-76). Under Communist Party Chairman, Mao Zedong (1893-1976) Tian Han was persecuted by the Gang of Four during the Cultural Revolution and died in jail.

During the difficult time of political upheaval between 1938 and 1948, Qin Wei established the Modern Art Association with Pang Xunqin, Ye Qianyu and Ding Cong in Chengdu. He also joined the activities held by Shanghai's artists and the Art Association on Earth of Hong Kong. In 1949, when Mao came to power, Qin Wei acquired work as a film and theatre art designer in at the Beijing Film Factory. Qin Wei created many realistic paintings during this period, reflecting the deep cultural daily life.

The years 1949 to 1966 are often described as the “Mao Era.” Mao Zedong had a strong opinion of art and once stated, "There is no such thing as 'art for art’s sake,' art that stands above classes, art that is detached from or independent of politics." Mao thought art should represent the peasants and common people happily at work, to shine a positive light on Communist society under Mao’s leadership.

Throughout his life, Qin Wei was present at key events that influenced both the political and social culture of China in the first half of the 20th Century, standing shoulder to shoulder with political dissidents whose influence on the art movement and later, China’s Cultural Revolution, is now an important part of the historical record.

One of the Qin Wei’s close associates, Tian Han, is well-known for the part he played during this tumultuous and controversial time in China’s history, but somehow it appears Qin Wei maintained relative political anonymity. Qin Wei’s association with Tian Han, his Tokyo based art education and his use of “literati,” one of the “four arts” of the Chinese scholar-official class, possibly put the artist at risk of persecution during Mao’s Cultural Revolution, but we found no indication of this in our research. As far as we know, Qin Wei was free to continue his craft throughout the 50s and 60s; possibly because the artist, influenced early in his life by the New Culture Movement, incorporated some Western techniques into his work, and developed a modernized form of traditional ink and wash/watercolor painting. Additionally, his subject matter of the peasant class aligned, to some degree, with the ideals of Chairman Mao. Regardless, Mao’s dictates on artwork undoubtedly influenced the artwork Qin Wei created during the Mao years.

Perhaps Qin Wei’s close friendship with Dr. George Hatem played a part in sparing him from suspicion by Mao’s Gang of Four, as Hatem was the first foreigner to become a Chinese citizen and was respected and trusted by Chairman Mao for his work to eradicate disease in China. Hatem, known to the Chinese as Dr. Ma Haide (the Virtuous Foreigner) introduced Qin Wei to John Colling, the namesake of this historic collection.

Whatever circumstances allowed Qin Wei the freedom to continue his work through Mao’s Cultural Revolution, he undoubtedly had a tremendous influence on the art world in China during his time. He lived and worked in artistic communities that were hot zones from the time of the New Culture Movement in China through the Cultural Revolution. This period covers the most prolific years of painting for Qin Wei, and the artist was likely a significant actor at a time in China’s history known to drastically impact China’s art movement.

Qin Wei’s artistic contributions to the art world were unknown to the Western market, even though he was openly considered a National Treasure. He dedicated his life to his art and the variety of experience he acquired in his field is apparent in his paintings. After being commissioned by John Colling, Qin Wei was able to show the Chinese art community his work at a personal exhibition held at the China National Museum of Fine Arts in 1982, which likely included some of the work offered in this sale.

The Artwork

Qin Wei’s style of watercolor artwork, called Ink and wash painting is referred to as shui-mo (water and ink) in Chinese and known as literati painting, one of the four arts of the Chinese scholar-official class. Traditional ink and wash painting was modernized during the New Culture Movement (1915-1935), when Chinese artists began to explore Western practices and implement certain watercolor techniques into the art form. Ink and wash painting is described as an art form that does not just reproduce the appearance of the subject, but it also captures the spirit.

Qin Wei’s experience designing the stage art for Tian Han’s dramas is noticeable by art professionals and apparent in his watercolor paintings because he employs the bold structure and dramatic light effects that are often seen on stage backdrops and serve to captivate theatre audiences. Like stage art, his subject matter is often focused on social life, but this may also be indicative of the political climate at the time.

Once Mao’s Cultural Revolution came to an end, the artist had the freedom to paint China more accurately. The paintings Qin Wei produced in the 1980s are either current representations or they are scenes set in the 20s & 30s, depicting the way Colling and Qin Wei remembered China from living there at that time.

Wei’s artwork are all original watercolors. The Colling family later reproduced certain paintings in limited edition form, as well as making a set of ten different high quality cards with the title China Treasures; The Watercolors of Qin Wei. These cards were used in the marketing and sales of the numbered prints and remarqued artist proofs.

The Artist’s Pallet

Most of the art of Qin Way offered here is set in or around the general area of Bei Hai Park in Peking (Beijing post 1970), a city at the epicenter of China’s rich history. Bei Hai Park was considered at one time to be the ‘nucleus’ of the City. As such, old Peking and Bei Hai Park serve as a perfect backdrop for any artist striving to capture the essence of Chinese culture.

Bei Hai Park first opened to the public as a park in 1925; it is one of the oldest and best-preserved imperial gardens in China. It spans 175 acres and lies at the center of Peking with Bei Hai Lake, the large body of water represented in some of Qin Wei’s work, covering more than half of the park. Bei Hai Park is very close to the famous Forbidden City, the very famous ruins of which have long since been torn down but are also represented in paintings included in this offering. Other paintings are views of well-known locations in Peking as they appeared pre-WWII, showing many historic places and structures that no longer exist today, either destroyed during the war years, or lost to the ravages of time.

According to Colling’s family, John Colling commissioned paintings about 1980. Qin Wei’s entire personal portfolio of works originally contained 82 pieces, including those commissioned by Colling, along with many others dating as far back as the 1930s, as well as art from his years working in the film and theatre industries in China. Many of the 61 paintings in this multi-auction offering are older works. Others are paintings commissioned specifically by Colling, added to Qin Wei’s portfolio in the 1980s.

Almost all the paintings are named, dated and/or described on the reverse by the artist, written in ink Chinese characters, as well as in pencil in a rough/partial English translation. Overall, the 61 original watercolors in this offering span a period of China’s history covering 50+ years. After translating some of the Chinese characters written on the back of each piece, we determined that some of this artwork features identified Chinese people, who were known to the artist and sometimes identified by name in the descriptions written on the reverse. This fact adds to the significance of this archive.

Qin Wei’s work offered here has never been offered for public sale to the Western world. Qin Wei held a personal exhibition of his work in 1982 at China’s National Museum of Fine Art and showcased his personal portfolio. It is unknown if any of the pieces he painted specifically for Colling were included in that exhibit. Five of his paintings were purchased by the National Museum adding to the Museum’s permanent collection. A single piece was purchased and given to the University of Kansas’ Spencer Museum of Art.

In 1987 a color catalog of Qin Wei’s entire portfolio of works entitled, Qin Wei’s Works Collection, was produced and published entirely in Chinese by the China Film Publishing House in Beijing and Xinhua Bookstore. The catalog included a preface entitled, “A Paintbrush that has Experienced Trouble,” praising the accomplishments of Qin Wei as a film and theatre designer and complimenting him for his unknown talent as an artist.

It is unknown to us the exact number of paintings originally commissioned by Colling. A handful of Qin Wei’s paintings remain with close family members of Mr. Colling. Aside from the paintings Mr. Colling’s direct descendants chose to keep, and the five pieces known to be held by the National Museum of Fine Art in Beijing, to our knowledge the paintings available here represent the majority of the remainder of Qin Wei’s personal portfolio of his work, less the designs for films or theatre sets, which do not appear to have been purchased by Colling.

John G. Colling Biography

John Colling, is the youngest of three sons born to Alexander Ginsberg (b. 1879) and Olga Levin (b.1903). Both his parents were Ashkenazi Jews from a small village in Siberia near Lake Baikal. Alexander Ginsberg fought the Communists during the Bolshevik Revolution, and was a war hero in his village. As such, the townspeople” awarded” him a young bride, Olga Levin, who was just 14 years old when she married 38 year-old Alexander in 1917. As soon as they married they fled Russia to escape the Bolshevik Communists and walked from their village to Vladivostok, where their first son was born. From there they took a boat to Shanghai, where their second son was born. As Communism took root in China, Russian Communists and Chinese Communists became allies and soon Alexander Ginsberg was sought by Chinses Communists as well as Russians. The Ginsberg family then left the big city of Shanghai and travelled to Tianjin. Alexander Ginsberg was captured and imprisoned by Chinese/Russian Communists in Tianjin when Olga was pregnant with John Colling, the couples third and last son. John Gabriel Colling was born 11/3/1920 in Tianjin, China.

Olga Levin Ginsberg remarried American U.S. Army Captain William Colling, stationed in Tianjin, in 1929. Captain William Colling registered Olga's three sons, under their American names, with the U.S. Consulate shortly after their marriage as his stepsons. The Colling family emigrated to the United States from 1938-1940, one family member at a time.

In July 1941 Colling joined the US Army and in 1942 was transferred to the China-Burma-India Theater of War. In 1944 he lived among the Chinese people in the village of Yenan. He returned to the US in late December 1944 and left the Army in 1946 but by 1957 he returned to China where he set up a textile manufacturing business in Hong Kong, which he operated into the 1990s.

The relationships forged by Colling during his childhood in Tianjin and then during his military service stationed in Yenan, had a profound impact on Colling throughout his lifetime. From his many years living among the Chinese people, he developed a deep respect of the Chinese culture.

Colling is the author of The Spirit of Yenan, A Wartime Chapter of the Sino American Friendship first published in 1991. The book is a first-hand account accompanied by a compilation of personal files and photographs from Colling’s time in China as part of a U.S. Army Observer Group that first arrived in 1944. Colling was part of the U.S. Army Office of Strategic Services, and during his career, part of the Dixie-Mission sent to Yenan to establish liaison with the Chinese.

During his time in Yenan, Colling met and began a lifelong friendship with George Hatem (1910-1988), more commonly known as, Dr. Ma Haide, the renowned American physician who became the first foreigner to become a Chinese citizen, as discussed earlier.

Colling provided the Qin Wei with the financial means to support himself while he created his art, an advantage limited to very few Chinese artists. He wanted Qin Wei to paint the country and her people as life existed before WWII.

Tianjin, the city of Colling’s earliest childhood memories, is the port city for nearby Peking (Beijing). Peking has played an important role in the development of Chinese culture throughout its long rich history, dating back over 3000 years. Peking serves as the backdrop for most of the paintings in the John Colling Private Collection.

John Colling commissioned master watercolorist, Qin Wei to put together this incredible collection after he returned to China and was living in Hong Kong, running his textile manufacturing business circa 1970-1980. In 1987 a catalog of the entire collection was published/printed by the China Film Publishing House and Xinhua Bookstore in Beijing. Since then this work has been part of the John Colling Private Collection and never available for public sale.




Primarily due to changing political and cultural differences over time.
Ref: Britannica.com/Biography/Tian-Han
Qin Wei is mentioned in the National Museum of Fine Art in Beijing website. https://www.namoc.org
Art in the Mao Era and Cultural Revolution, by Dr. Kristen Loring Brennan
The term “National Treasure” was used by Chinese when promoting his exhibition.
Jochim, Mark Joseph; Modern Chinese Inkwash Painting and the Mastery of Gao Qifeng, 9/1/2018; Stamp a day website
Ref: National Art Museum of China in Beijing, web page: https://www.namoc.org

Bei Hai is referenced all over the internet as Beihai. The Colling family insists the proper spelling is Bei Hai. This may be a product of cross-culture.
This is Qin Wei’s lone artwork held in the Western world excepting the Colling Collection.
The catalog contains a list and images of the paintings in the exhibit.
This was the cultural custom at the time.
Colling’s birth name is Russian. He came into the United States under his given name, and his stepfather gave all three boys new “Americanized” names. At the time, there was tremendous anti-Jewish prejudice and the family wished to keep their background secret.
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