Heavenly Pond and Stone Cliff (Estanque celestial y acantilado de piedra)

C. C. Wang, Chinese, 1907 - 2003

1972

hanging scroll

ink and color on paper

Gift of Jeannette Shambaugh Elliott

1984.527

© Phoenix Art Museum. All rights reserved.

Asian

No

Born in the twilight years of the Qing dynasty in China, C. C. Wang was a skillful painter as well as an avid collector and art dealer. He deepened his knowledge of Chinese art by studying the imperial collection of paintings at The Palace Museum in Beijing. In 1949, Wang moved to New York City, where he enrolled in courses at the Art Students League. At the time, a group of avant-garde artists, known later as the Abstract Expressionists, was boldly breaking the rules of the art world. Wang was inspired to abandon traditional techniques of using brushstrokes to create his compositions. Instead, he experimented with dampening or crumpling paper before pouring ink over the surface to create abstracted landscape forms. Wang died at the age of 96 in New York just at the dawn of a new millennium.