Qualia Contemporary Art
229 Hamilton Ave
Palo Alto, CA 94301
(650) 656-9132
qca_info@qualiagallery.com www.qualiagallery.com
BIOGRAPHY GU GAN 古干
Lived 1942–2020
Gu Gan was a Chinese painter‑calligrapher whose experiments with colour, character deconstruction, and Western modernism positioned him as a primary catalyst of the mainland’s “modern calligraphy” movement. Raised in Changsha, Hunan, Gu entered the Middle School attached to the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, graduating in 1962. After a decade of labour in a printing factory during the Cultural Revolution, he was reassigned in 1975 to the Fine‑Arts section of the People’s Literature Publishing House, where editorial work allowed him to resume studio practice.
In October 1985 he organised the First Modern Calligraphy Exhibition at the National Art Museum of China, an event widely regarded as the public birth of Chinese modernist calligraphy. That same year he was elected founding chairman of the Society of Modern Calligraphy and Painting, formalising his role as spokesman for the movement.
Gu articulated his approach in two milestone texts: The Formation of Modern Calligraphy (1986), the first book on the subject inside China, and The Three Steps of Modern Calligraphy (1990), published bilingually and later adopted in art colleges. His essays promoted elongation, fragmentation, multi‑script layering, and the use of coloured ink as strategies to “re‑vitalise” classical forms.
Works by Gu Gan reside in major public collections worldwide, including the British Museum, London; Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology, Oxford; Museum of East Asian Art, Cologne; Museum of Fine Arts, Vienna; National Art Museum of China, Beijing; Chinese Olympic Museum, Beijing; and Xunyao Chinese Characters Museum, Chengdu. His calligraphy featured in the landmark 2002 British Museum exhi bition Brushes with Surprise: The Art of Calligraphy in Modern China. In 1998 he became the first Chinese artist invited to design the label for Château Mouton‑Rothschild’s 1996 grand cru, sharing an honour ac corded to masters such as Zao Wou‑ki and Xu Lei. Alisan Fine Arts presented a solo exhibition of his work in 2014 and highlighted him at Ink Asia 2015, Hong Kong.
Acknowledged by critics as the “forefather” of modern calligraphy, Gu Gan chaired the inaugural Society of Modern Calligraphy and Painting after organising the movement’s first major exhibition in 1985. His 33 sport‑themed calligraphic paintings created for the 2008 Beijing Olympics earned him the American Sport Art Museum & Archives “Sport Artist of the Year” title. Through relentless experimentation and global exhi bition, he has secured a lasting place in the canon of contemporary Chinese art, inspiring new generations to see the written word as an arena for avant‑garde invention.
Chamber Deliberate Wine West Farmland Strength Field, 2011
Ink and acrylic on paper
69 x 69 cm | 27 x 27 in
Pleasure in the Forest, 2013
Ink and acrylic on paper
31 x 44 cm | 12 x 17.25 in
林中乐