Remembering Liu Guoshu, the pioneer of oil painting and the famous oil painter of Sichuan Fine Arts Institute.
Liu Guoshu was born in 1919, a native of Fuling, Chongqing, and a member of the middle school. In 1935, after graduating from junior high school, he began to work as an elementary school art and ** teacher. In 1938, he was admitted to Wuchang Art School, where he studied under famous teachers such as Tang Yihe, Feng Faci, Xu Dungu, and Zhou Duo, and received a good professional education in Western painting, which laid the foundation for his realist painting creation.
Liu Guoshu in the studio in 1984.
Flying Luding Bridge, 193x138cm, oil on canvas, 1959, Collection of the Military Museum.
In 1942, many of Liu Guoshu's works were selected for national art exhibitions, marking the maturity of his artistic style. In 1945, Liu Guoshu graduated from the Western Painting Department of Wuchang Art School, and the following year he married Fu Ruoyun, a classmate of the Art School, and the two taught at Fengdu County Middle School in Sichuan Province. In 1948, he was hired by the Southwest Academy of Fine Arts as the director of the Western Painting Department. In 1950, Liu Guoshu was employed by the Fine Arts Department of the Southwest People's Art Institute (the predecessor of the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute) to serve the art education of New China. In 1953, the Academy was adjusted, the Fine Arts Department of the Southwest People's Art Institute was merged with the Painting Department and the Applied Art Department of the Chengdu Art School, and the Southwest Fine Arts College was established at the original address of the Southwest People's Art Institute in Huangjueping, Chongqing, and Liu Guoshu was assigned to teach in the Painting Department. Xia Peiyao, who enrolled in 1955 and later became the first head of the oil painting department of the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute, was Liu Guoshu's student during this period.
Rice Delivery, 90x122cm, oil on canvas, 1953.
Since the establishment of the Oil Painting Major of Southwest America (the predecessor of the Oil Painting Department of Sichuan Fine Arts Institute) in 1956, Liu Guoshu, Liu Yisi, Ye Zhengchang and others have become key figures in the major, and they are also the promoters of combining the Soviet system with the oil painting teaching practice of Sichuan Fine Arts Institute. Liu Guoshu implements a more pragmatic approach in teaching, emphasizing the training of basic ability of realistic painting. Yao Qin, who enrolled in 1952, recalled that Liu Guoshu at that time "had extremely strict requirements for students' styling, advocated liberalization in terms of expression skills, avoided rigid painting style, required tight inside and loose outside, soft on the outside and rigid on the inside, and advocated the use of large brushes to paint, and the picture should have momentum."
Red Army to North Sichuan, 193x138cm, oil on canvas, 1958, Collection of the Military Museum.
The 50s and 60s of the 20th century were the main period for the birth of many of his oil painting masterpieces, including "Sending Rice" (1953), "The Red Army Goes to Northern Sichuan" (1957), "Flying to Luding Bridge" (1959), "County Party Secretary" (1964), and "Dismissal" (1965). These works were widely disseminated and had a profound impact on the history of Chinese oil painting, representing the level of Chinese realist thematic oil painting at that time, and had exemplary significance for the creation of realistic oil painting in Sichuan and Chongqing.
Secretary of the County Party Committee, 145x130cm, oil on canvas, 1964.
Liu Guoshu painted the Liberation Monument in Chongqing in 1964.
Dismissal, oil on canvas, 1965.
After the reform and opening up, the teaching team of oil painting represented by Liu Guoshu, Xia Peiyao, Wang Datong, Zhang Fangzhen and Ma Yiping attached great importance to the new students of Sichuan Fine Arts Institute in the new era and devoted a lot of effort to teaching. As the person in charge of the oil painting major at that time, Liu Guoshu worked hard with his colleagues to promote the teaching of oil painting to a higher level and higher standards, and the teaching results were remarkable. Many famous painters who are famous in the art world today are students of Liu Guoshu, such as Luo Zhongli, Cheng Conglin, He Duoling, Gao Xiaohua, Pang Maokun, etc.
In 2021, Liu Guoshu, who was 102 years old at the time, instructed students in the studio.
Liu Guoshu is another generation of Chinese realistic oil painters after Li Tiefu, Li Shutong, Xu Beihong, Tang Yihe and other early representatives, and has played a role in the history of Chinese oil painting and art education. He inherited the artistic experience of oil painters in the first period, and passed on the more systematic realistic painting skills from the first to the new China period with Liu Yisi, Ye Zhengchang and other contemporaries, laying a preliminary foundation for the establishment and development of the oil painting profession in southwest China. Liu Guoshu served as the person in charge and backbone teacher of the oil painting major of Sichuan Fine Arts Institute for a long time, and cultivated many outstanding professionals. In addition, as a painter, he also created many impressive masterpieces in different historical periods. Throughout his artistic history, Liu Guoshu advocates a realistic view of art, pays attention to the harmony and unity of artistry and reality, and his tireless educational enthusiasm and artistic character of excellence will still influence and inspire younger generations and future generations.
On the 80th anniversary of the founding of the school, eight generations of students presented flowers to Liu Guoshu.
In 2021, Liu Guoshu won the honor of "Top Ten People Who Moved Chongqing".
*: Sichuan Fine Arts Institute.