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Da Zhong Zhang Page: Leona Craig Art Gallery |
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Service in English: 086 13632410877 clm@leonacraig.com |
Office/Fax: 086 20 83600764 Guangzhou, China |
Service in Chinese: 086 13632407809 ayu@redhillchina.com |
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 Da Zhong Zhang (Zhang Da Zhong; Zhang Dazhong) Biography Da Zhong Zhang became an artist relatively late, in life. During the days of the cultural revolution, people did not go to college, as academia was stifled and shunned by the government. In the late 1980's, Zhang finally went to school and eventually got a masters of fine art from the Guangzhou Fine Arts Academy, which is even more of an accomplishment because he did not choose art as his field of undergraduate study, having chosen literature, instead. His painting career, then, began, in the 1990's. He was a starving artist for only a short time before one his paintings received national awards, and a Hong Kong gallery agreed to take him on. However, the gods, it seems, always want artists to suffer at bit more for their work, and, as a result of the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, the gallery closed. Still, Zhang DaZhong did not give up, although he did despair. He continued to paint, feverishly, even though his wife begged him to give up and get a real job. He painted night and day and peddled around the streets of Guangzhou with paintings on his bicycle trying to find a gallery that would take on his art. For all his effort, galleries refused, saying that oil paintings were not popular in China, and, then, one day when he woke up, his wife was gone. Apparently, those galleries (and his first wife) were wrong. He finally got a second chance at success and fame when one of his paintings received a prize for excellence, in the "I Love My Country" Exhibition, in 2000. His paintings, now, sell in the range of tens of thousands of U. S. dollars, which, in terms of buying power of the Yuan, makes him a very successful and rich artist and man. He says that his studio is still filled with boxed noodles, but his new wife points out that his girth shows that he is no longer a starving artist. In the new millennia, Da Zhong Zhang has become famous for his political art, featuring Red Guard girls. As part of the so-called Cultural Revolution of Mao, women were encouraged to not be women but to be part of the homogeneous, androgynous worker masses. Women wore loose-fitting clothing and hung their heads to hide their natural curves. Da Zhong, whose sister and her friends were real Red Guard girls when he was growing up, has taken offense with that whole issue, and he has painted a number of works featuring Red Guard girls in happy carefree atmospheres, not taking life so seriously as good Maoist comrades should, and with their curves accented, not hidden, by their Maoist garb, several of which we feature, in our on-line gallery, with several more, in the physical gallery, in Guangzhou. Da Zhong's ability in portraiture is top-notch, taking on an almost photographic quality. Today, there are collectors from Taiwan, Hong Kong and other distant places who come to Guangzhou, only for the purpose of seeing (and buying) his art. We have a number of his "Red Guard Girl" series and others, available, in the Leona Cgaig Art Gallery (some not shown on-line). |
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| Catalogue Number | Price | Approximate size | Button | |||||
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690. |
Communism: original oil on canvas by Da Zhong Zhang (2006) This painting maps the changes that women have undergone, in China, during eighty years of communist strife. The girl on the right is dressed in a Red Army uniform from the early days of the communist revolution. The one on the left is a Red Guard girl, during the cultural revolution of the 1960's. From those days of old when women were just comrades, not to be distinguished from men, has emerged the modern Chinese woman, concerned about her appearance and being a woman. |
$4,000 | 40x50cm | ||||
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692. |
Village History: original oil painting by Da Zhong Zhang The red guard were sent out to the countryside to work along side of and help the farmers and small village people build the new China. Away from their families and putting off building their own lives, they were sometimes neither welcomed nor accepted by the very people that they were eager to help. Certainly, there were happy time, times of achievement. Thinking back through her personal history, in this small isolated Chinese village, do the bads outweigh the goods? |
$6,000 | 50x60cm | ||||
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691. |
Bloody Period of the Revolution: original painting by Da Zhong Zhang China's communist revolution has a bloody history from the start. During the very bloody beginnings, this Red Army girl has to take time out to wash off some of the blood, sweat and dirt that has accumulated on her beautiful face from a bloody campaign. |
$6,000 | 60x50cm | ||||
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696. | Xiong Guan Road: original oil painting by Da Zhong Zhang | sold | 100x130cm | ||||
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694. |
Rulers of the World: original oil on canvas by Da Zhong Zhang |
sold | 150x100cm | ||||
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697. | Army Unit Song: original oil on canvas by Da Zhong Zhang | $26,000 | 150x100cm | ||||
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695. | Red Sun in the Mountains: original oil on canvas by Da Zhong Zhang | $27,000 | 130x110cm | ||||
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662. |
Autumn of the Revolution: original oil on canvas by Da Zhong Zhang 2009 |
sold | 130x100cm | ||||
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198. |
The Door: original oil on canvas by Da Zhong Zhang, 2009 There is a real story behind this portrait. The Red Guards were sent out to help the people, in the countryside, sacrificing their youth. While this particular Red Guard Girl was away from home, helping her country, her country took offense with something that her father did, and her whole family was killed for it. When she finally came home, there was nothing to come home to: only a door to an empty house. Thus, it was for many of the Red Guard. They were told that they were the future of China, and after they gave up so much of their lives, they went home to bleak futures. The style of the painting also has a graininess to denote the lack of clarity about her future. We love Da Zhong's sense of humor and justice, we love his artistic style, and we love his Red Guard Girls. |
$27,000 | 150x100cm | call or email to arrange for acquisition and shipping |
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186. |
Lighting the Fire: original oil on canvas by Da Zhong Zhang, 2008 Cooking arrangements, like this, were common on the Huangpu plateau where this scene takes place: women do both the farming and the cooking. However, from the look on this Red Guard Girl's face, we see that the fire inside her is growing dim. Having given up her family, friends, and educational opportunities to work for the cause, she is having her doubts about her choice. She is wondering if there is a future for her beyond the menial tasks that she has been performing in her duties as a Red Guard Girl. She has reason to worry, as when the cultural revolution comes to a close, she will, likely, have nothing to look forward to and nowhere to fit in. |
$25,000 | 130x100cm | call or email to arrange for acquisition and shipping |
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Liberation Zone: original oil painting on canvas by Da Zhong Zhang (2009) |
sold | 60x50cm | |||||
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163. |
World Famous Book: original oil on canvas by Da Zhong Zhang (Zhang
Dazhong) Of course, what other book would a Red Guard Girl read? Could it be the famous "Quotes of Chairman Mao"? Zhang Dazhong has created some wonderful and beautiful portraits in his Red Guard Girl series, which is a tribute to women and a celebration of their beauty plus a statement about China's not-so-distant past. The Red Guard were a youth group that sprung up around the time of the cultural revolution, a group, which he later tried to control and, even later, had to deny. In this one, she seems in a swoon over this book, which she is taking the time to read and contelplate in the wilderness of life. The colors and contrasts are brilliant. In her drab green uniform, she pops out of the light background composed of dying grasses on dusty plain with light filtering through the trees, almost, but not quite, lighting her up, like a saint in religious paintings from the past. |
sold | 100x130cm | Please email or call to arrange for acquisition and shipping | |||
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615. |
Serving the People: original oil on canvas by Da Zhong Zhang It is ironic that the way the Red Guard served the people was by true disservice to those who followed the "olds" of Chinese society. In the cultural revolution, Mao tried to scrub the great legacy of the Chinese nation, throughout history, from the collective minds of the Chinese people, the so-called four olds: old culture, old society, old ideas, and old habits. Indeed, to this day, most Chinese people do not even know about the great works of old, and politeness, which to Mao meant that one person was deferring to another, is still particularly absent from the modern culture. You also cannot miss the symbolism in the bundles: tied together and united, and us and them between them. |
sold | 110x140cm | Please email or call to arrange for acquisition and shipping | |||
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605. |
My Hiding Place: original oil on canvas by Da Zhong Zhang |
sold | 100x150cm | ||||
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The Stand: original oil on canvas by Da Zhong Zhang (2006) |
$4,000 | 40x50cm | |||||
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Team Leader: original oil on canvas by Da Zhong Zhang | sold | ||||||
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Another way to Live: original oil on canvas by Da Zhong Zhang |
sold | ||||||
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693. | Victory Dance: original oil on canvas by Da Zhong Zhang | sold | 50x60cm | ||||
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Regeneration: original oil on canvas by Da Zhong Zhang |
sold | ||||||
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Mao's Angels: original oil on canvas by Da Zhong Zhang |
sold | ||||||
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New Year: original oil on canvas by Da Zhong Zhang |
sold | ||||||
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Red Army Poster Girl: original oil on canvas by Da Zhong Zhang (Zhang Da Zhong) | sold | ||||||
| We have other works by Da Zhong Zhang, in our gallery, which are not displayed in our on-line gallery. If you are interested in seeing more of her works, please contact us by phone or by email, and will will forward more of her works to you by email. Office: 086 20 83600764; clm@leonacraig.com | ||||||||
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Red Hill Capital
Corporation, Delaware, USA 2008-2010; all worldwide rights reserved.
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