On the afternoon of September 17, the opening for the academic season of “Bright Glory: The Aesthetics of Yuan Yunfu”?was held at the Tsinghua University Art Museum. Vice Chairman of the China Federation of Literary and Art Circles, Deputy Director of the Central Literature and History Museum and Vice Chairman of the Chinese Artists Association Feng Yuan, Deputy Director of the Tsinghua University Committee Xiang Botao, Party Secretary and Vice Chairman of the Chinese Artists Association Xu Li, President of the Chinese National Academy of Painting Yang Xiaoyang, , Deputy Director of the National Palace Museum Ren Wanping, Dean of Academy of Arts and Design Lu Xiaobo, Senior Professor of Tsinghua University Du Dakai, Professor from Peking University Zhu Qingsheng, and curator Yuan Jia respectively delivered speeches. Over 200 renowned scholars from the fields of art and sociology as well as Tsinghua students, attended the opening ceremony, which was hosted by Ma Sai, Secretary of the Party Committee of the Academy of Arts and Design at Tsinghua University. At the opening ceremony, the donation ceremony of Yuan Yunfu’s“Hundred Years of Lotus Fragrance”was held together with the debut of the large-scale catalogue “The Aesthetics of Yuan Yunfu”?published by Tsinghua University Press.

The exhibition was co-sponsored by Tsinghua University, the China Artists Association and the Chinese National Academy of Art. It is jointly organized by Academy of Arts and Design at Tsinghua University and Tsinghua University Art Museum. The exhibition is on display from August 16th to October 7th. It showcases 123 artworks by Yuan Yunfu, including the “Thousands of Miles of the Yangtze River”, which was collected by the Palace Museum.

In the aim of guiding the public to pay more attention to the academic exploration and dissemination of the exhibition, it was open to the public on August 16 by omitting the opening ceremony. After its launch, it has attracted a lot of attention from the academic field. The opening of this academic season is a positive response to scholars’?affection for academic research. It focuses on the cultural value of the works themselves while ushering in a new trend lead by academic exhibitions of art.

“Yuan Yunfu’s remarkable career, spanning over 65 years, marked the life and work of a great master artist, a passionate humanist, a dedicated and insightful educator, and a committed, loving husband and father. He greatly impacted the lives of countless individuals, positively affecting scores of artists, educators, students, collectors, and diverse people from many walks of life. Certainly, his death resulted in generating a poignant loss to everyone who he touched and left behind. History will record him as a great artist and educator who was responsible for many important contributions to art, culture, and education, “commented by Anthony Nickler.

As Feng Yuan wrote in the Preface for this exhibition, “In the academy, we used to call him ‘Master Yuan.’ And the address ‘master’ had already surpassed the respect for a teacher in general. Mr. Yuan was a model of moral education. He practiced the cultivation for the society, especially for the young people, as a benevolent person with the code of conduct, including humility, simplicity, self-awareness, independence, benevolence, and selflessness, insisted by him for decades, which let him enjoy a high prestige in the academy. We can practically feel his greatness and infinite charm as a educator.”?Mr. Yuan left a valuable academic context and spiritual tradition for the art field with his modest personality, broad cultural knowledge, profound artistic strength and unique ideological trajectories.

The exhibition is not only a commemoration of Mr. Yuan, but it also hopes to pursue the artist’s life path and significance in the art history through interpretations and discussions on his thoughts and artworks. Younger students are encouraged to follow the example of Mr. Yuan, to combine individual values with the development of new age, thus further explore the frontier of art.

Courtesy of the artist and Tsinghua Art Museum, edited by Zhang Yizhi and Sue/CAFA ART INFO