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Rediscovered Works

32 e a s t 57 t h s t r e e t , 2 n d f l o o r , n e w y o r k , n e w y o r k 10022 • (212) 421-5390 165 w o rt h av e n u e , pa l m b e a c h , f l o r i d a 33480 • (561) 655-2090

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Above: Chuang Che in his New York studio Left: Portrait photograph of Chuang Che

Chuang Che (b.1934)

Born in Peiping (now Beijing) in 1934, Chuang Che established an international reputation for his innovative blending of Eastern and Western painting traditions. His father, Chuang Yen, was a well-known scholar, calligrapher, and director at the Palace Museum of Peking. Che was thus introduced to classical Chinese paintings and calligraphy at a young age. Completing his education in the Fine Arts Department at National Taiwan Normal University from 1954 to 1957; he was awarded a J.D. Rockefeller III Fund travel grant in 1966 to study in the United States and travel in Europe. In 1973, Chuang Che and his wife moved to the United States settling first in Ann Arbor, Michigan before relocating to Yonkers, near New York City in 1987. In Che’s paintings, elegant, spontaneous lines inspired by Chinese calligraphy merge with broad gestural brushwork, spatters, and drips influenced by the Abstract Expressionists. Che’s palette of burnt umber, emerald green, lavender, and turquoise blue accompanied by black flowing lines reference the natural world. As Chuang Che eloquently states, “Through daily contact and experience, the brush strokes and script variations in calligraphy have now become a part of my creative soul. What I want to do is to rediscover the original nature of calligraphy. Wouldn’t it be truly magnificent to use the strokes of the running cursive to depict the mountains and rivers?” Chuang Che’s paintings are in the permanent collections of many international museums including: the Cleveland Museum, Cleveland, Ohio; The Detroit Art Museum, Detroit, Michigan; the Shanghai Art Museum, Shanghai, China; Centre Pompidou, Paris, France; the Hong Kong Art Museum, Hong Kong, China; the Cernuschi Museum, Paris, France; and The Spencer Art Museum, Lawrence, Kansas.

Untitled 1, 2017 oil and acrylic on canvas 67 x 49 1/2 in. FG© 142038

Snow Country, 2020 | oil on canvas | 49 5/8 x 49 1/2 in. | FG© 142032

(cover) Untitled (86-66), 1987 | oil and acrylic on canvas | 40 x 52 in. | FG© 142006

In 1981, Wally Findlay Galleries presented the first comprehensive exhibition of contemporary Chinese art ever held in the United States—a watershed moment that introduced American audiences to emerging artistic voices from the People’s Republic of China. Almost two years prior to the exhibition, James R. Borynack, current Chairman and CEO, traveled to China on several separate occasions as negotiations and planning for the groundbreaking presentation took shape. The landmark exhibition aligned the gallery with the earliest stages of China’s contemporary artistic awakening, helping position Chinese abstraction and avant-garde practice within a global discourse long before such work gained widespread international recognition. Chuang Che, one of the great pioneers of Chinese abstraction, stands as a central inheritor of this legacy. His work embodies the synthesis of Eastern philosophical grounding and Western gestural freedom that audiences first encountered during Findlay’s historic 1981 presentation. Now, fortyfive years later, Rediscovered Works offers an intimate and revealing look at a painter whose vision illuminates the evolution of contemporary Chinese art across two continents.

Untitled 1, 2001 oil and acrylic on canvas 49 5/8 x 65 3/4 in. FG© 142028

Untitled 1, 1973 oil and acrylic on canvas 49 5/8 x 41 3/4 in. FG© 142034

Untitled 2, 1977 | oil and acrylic on canvas | 34 5/8 x 48 in. | FG© 142029

Untitled (90-20), 1990 | oil and acrylic on canvas | 38 3/4 x 51 1/2 in. | FG© 142005

Looking at the development of traditional Chinese art, we can see that landscape painting was a major force, and abstraction is the most appropriate vehicle for carrying forward its essence. – Chuang Che, July 8, 2015, New York

Untitled 1, 1972 oil and acrylic on canvas 39 3/8 x 33 7/8 in. FG© 142027

Landscape (74-64), 1974 | oil and acrylic on canvas | 39 3/4 x 48 in. | FG© 142030 15

Untitled 8, 1976 | oil and acrylic on canvas | 22 x 50 in. | FG© 142039

Works on Paper The gallery is proud to debut nine large-scale works on paper by Chuang Che, exhibited here for the first time. Created in 1993, the works were carefully set aside by the artist soon after their completion and remained unseen until earlier this year, when they were rediscovered during a visit to Chuang Che’s home. Their vibrant colors remain in pristine condition, retaining a striking immediacy. Pigment surges, pools, and disperses with elemental force, as dense formations of black and charcoal are counterbalanced by luminous passages of turquoise, mineral green, and flashes of yellow that animate the surface. Here, gesture becomes structure. Calligraphic arcs sweep across the paper or dissolve into atmospheric washes, while saturated passages yield to translucency, allowing the ground to breathe. Forms suggest stone, water, and shifting terrain without becoming descriptive, emerging and receding in a dynamic interplay of mass and void. Monumental in scale and presence, these works stand as fully realized statements. The paper records the speed, pressure, and movement of the hand, preserving a vivid sense of energy held in suspension—at once controlled and spontaneous, lyrical and commanding.

Findlay Galleries, New York Exhibition Room, 2026

Selected Museum Collections National Museum of History, Taipei, Taiwan Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taipei, Taiwan Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH The Detroit Art Museum, Detroit, MI Hong Kong Art Museum, Hong Kong, China Art Museum, The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI The Spencer Art Museum, The University of Kansas, Lawrence, KA Cornell University, Ithaca, NY Saginaw Art Museum, Saginaw, MI Shanghai Art Museum, Shanghai, China Guangdong Art Museum, Guangdong, China Art Museum of Central Institute of Fine Arts, China List Visual Arts Center at MIT, Cambridge, MA Herbert F. Johnson Museum at Cornell, Ithaca, New York

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Copyright © March 2026, Wally Findlay Galleries International Inc. All rights reserved. No part of the images or text in this catalogue may be duplicated without permission of Findlay Galleries. Prices and availability of artwork featured in this catalogue are subject to change without notice.