SANYU (1895-1966)

Femme allongée, bras droit derrière le dos Ink on paper 28 x 45.5 cm - 11 x 17 7/8 in. Michel Habart’s Collection Michel Habart, a writer and collector At the end of the sixties, every day of the week, my father Michel Habart used to walk through his « golden triangle » as he liked to define his unchanging Parisian itinerary. From his home near the garden of the Palais Royal, he would walk to the rue de Richelieu to the Bibliothèque nationale and then stroll to the Hotel Drouot. The Palais Royal garden is his place of reverie where he can sometimes be found « making the statue », surrounded by sparrows that peck at him from everywhere. At the National Library, he works on his translations or on his research, articles, books and poems. Polyglot, he has translated plays by the German Bertolt Brecht and the Irishman Sean O’Casey for Jean Vilar’s Théâtre National Populaire. Fluent in classical and dialectal Arabic as well as Berber, he wrote « Histoire d’un parjure » (History of a Perjurer) in 1960 during the Algerian War, which denounced the violence of the colonial enterprise in 1830.  With an insatiable curiosity, Michel Habart assiduously frequents the Hotel Drouot. He likes to discover these works of art which, according to him, « appear for a moment in broad daylight, only to disappear the next moment ». In this unique museum, he reveals himself as an enlightened art lover with eclectic tastes : acquiring a Malagasy sculpture as well as a rare edition of the Encyclopaedia or a play by a forgotten 19th century author. At that time, it was during one of his morning visits to Drouot that he discovered a suitcase full of drawings by Sanyu. I remember my father’s beaming face when he returned home with his treasure under his arm. Afterwards, he literally became ‘inhabited’ by these drawings. His enthusiasm translated into an endless source of commentary, on the simplicity of the line, the sensuality always in motion that emanated from these women of the twenties and thirties. He drew parallels between Chinese calligraphy and these innumerable nudes, evoking Matisse, Maillol or Henry Moore... Among the drawings were also portraits and other women wearing cloche hats, applied to their sketches that Sanyu had drawn at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière. On the trail of Sanyu Michel Habart tried to find out more about the artist. In the 1970s the Internet and Google did not exist. Neither in the National Library nor on telephone lists did Sanyu’s name appear. He was unknown, even ignored by the art world. Only the gallery owner Jean Claude Riedel knew and admired the painter. He was convinced of the artistic value of his work, spoke of it magnificently, but above all wanted to acquire the drawings. He insisted on numerous occasions, which had the effect of annoying my father, who had no desire to part with them. He liked to share his enthusiasm and took pleasure in showing the drawings to his friends, including the painters Kijno, Guermaz and Ginette Signac (daughter of the impressionist painter Paul Signac). The poet and journalist Henri Kréa suggested that he contact a close friend of Sanyu’s, the potter Robert Dahan. I remember that day in October 1981 when my father received his letter which brought Sanyu back to life : “He was poor...so he always went on foot... or almost” “When we went to his house...he would cook you dishes...I remember stuffed fish...We didn’t dare touch the dish because it was so well presented...We had the impression of violating a painting...” Albert Dahan’s testimony captured the personality of the painter in all its strength, humour and poetry: “His last painting...I dare say it was born of a conversation we had together...The artist’s solitude...It was a tiny elephant...running through an immense desert...He pointed his finger at the animal and said to me: “That’s me! And to laugh...”.  It was in the early eighties that Michel Habart met Antoine Chen, a young Chinese from Taiwan, with whom he became friends and quickly shared the same passion. These two could talk for hours about Sanyu. They tried to fill in the gaps in the painter’s biography, never agreed on the dates, but it always ended in great laughter.... Antoine Chen began to photograph about a hundred drawings. Out of curiosity, he went to the studio where Sanyu had lived and worked at 28 rue de la Sablière. He was lucky enough to meet Sanyu’s neighbour, Hélène Pachkoff, who was also a painter, and her testimony, as well as an album of photographs of the painter that Madame Pachkoff entrusted to Antoine, were extremely valuable for the elaboration of the first book written in Chinese about Sanyu. This book entitled “A Nostalgic Song” was to accompany an exhibition of drawings and watercolours from the Habart collection which took place in Taipei in May 1982 at the Printmaker’s Gallery. Our two accomplices then organised a second exhibition in Paris of works on paper at the Galerie d’Orient, rue des Grands Augustins, in May 1984. The choice of these two places had a symbolic value with regard to the work and life of the artist. On October 13, 1987, a page was turned... Michel Habart, who liked to describe himself as “a wanderer”, passed away quietly in his sleep. I remembered two lines from his poem “Dernière Clownerie” dedicated to Dylan Thomas whom he had met in London in 1943 : “Before you go out, light up, you crazy flames, My garments laden with their false medals.” Today, the painter Sanyu, who found it so difficult to make a living from his art, is recognised throughout the world, particularly in Taiwan and in People’s China. It is as if, a century later, he had returned to the country of his ancestors. Didn’t he say to his painter friend Hélène Pachkoff: “I’m sure I’m Chinese. From which China ? That doesn’t interest me. But in any case, I am Chinese”.  From the early 1920s, Sanyu produced more than 2000 drawings and watercolors. He drew constantly, and was particularly inspired by the women around him, whether they were classmates or models. It was then that he created the works on paper that we are presenting today. They adopt more or less the same format, probably that of a paper tablecloth from one of the Parisian cafés, and they allow us to discover the world of the artistic academies of the Parisian district of Montparnasse. When he arrived in Paris, Sanyu preferred to distinguish himself from his Chinese compatriots and did not enroll in a prestigious art school such as the Ecole des Beaux-Arts de Paris or the Académie Julian. He ventured more willingly into the cafés of the Montparnasse district and attended the less traditional Académie de la Grande Chaumière from 1925 onwards. This Academy, founded in 1902, was in opposition to the academicism of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. On the contrary, it encouraged its students to freely experiment with subjects and techniques. This unconstrained environment allowed him to learn to sketch from live models and in particular to try his hand at the nude, which was very controversial in his native country. He strolled in the cafes of his neighborhood where he observed the customers and made sketches in a few minutes, sometimes on simple paper doilies. These could be recognized by the edges cut into semi-circles on the 206, 207, 211 lots. From the famous Habart Collection, four of these drawings are of women in clothing. Some are sitting, bent over, one seems to be drawing. They are snapshots of the artist’s immediate, everyday environment. In the middle of an exercise session, he was probably more interested in his fellow female artists than in the model of the day. Another of his sketches, lot 212, represents a female face, sketched in a few lines. His Chinese ink drawings incorporate the heritage of his calligraphy training with his father in the family home in Nanchong. Indeed, his line is modulated by the use of the brush and made alive by the movement of the wrist specific to the practice of calligraphy. The work then shows a great spontaneity that the pencil does not allow as much, not to mention the intensity of the black that ink offers. The latter was very well suited to capture the fluidity of the curves of a naked body, as shown in Lots 205 and 210. Sanyu’s drawings blend his two artistic backgrounds. He uses his traditional Chinese freehand fluid line to express the abstraction and the purification of the Parisian avantgarde of the early 20th century