Champion of China's art in Paris

Gao Chunfang (left) and her student Frederic Laloyeau, who is learning to paint a panda in traditional Chinese style. Tuo Yannan / China Daily

Painter spends four decades creating and illuminating traditional Chinese art

She might be mistaken for any other classy French lady in her 60s, though perhaps with an artistic and exotic air.

When I knock on the door to her Paris apartment on a Saturday afternoon, the person who answers has deep-set eyes, a European-looking nose and fair skin.

But the woman, Gao Chunfang, is a noted French-Chinese painter who was born in Shanghai in 1947, the daughter of a Chinese businessman and a British woman. She grew up in China but has lived since 1975 in Paris.

From her earliest childhood, Gao showed great talent in painting and her works such as White Rabbit and Repairing the Road were selected for top Chinese and Japanese exhibitions of art done by children.

"When I was 11, my uncle came to Shanghai, and he is a big fan of oil painting. It happened that my family had a white Persian cat and I painted it. My uncle praised my work, and this encouragement sparked my passion for painting cats," Gao says in fluent Mandarin.

Her art, particularly paintings of cats, is famous in France and her work is exhibited in China.

Gao, also founder of the French-Chinese Culture Association and the Chinese Film Festival in Paris, has been a longtime advocate for Chinese painting, calligraphy and culture in Paris.

But her ties to China run even deeper. She was a close friend of one of China's most famous women, Soong Ching Ling, who she called "aunt", and who was the widow of revolutionary leader Sun Yat-sen, as well as vice-president and later honorary president of the People's Republic of China.

Given Gao's eclectic background, I ask her: "So do you consider yourself Chinese, British, or French?"

"You know," she says, "people call overseas Chinese 'bananas', because their mindsets are Western while appearances are Chinese, just like a banana yellow outside but white inside. To me, I think I am a ginseng fruit: white outside but yellow inside."

A big Pleyel grand piano, the type: owned by Chopin, occupies lots of space in her living room. We sit on Chinese traditional-style chairs, next to a set of Napoleon period furniture, surrounded by many beautiful Chinese paintings and works of calligraphy.

She looks around at the paintings, artist tools and art books stacked to the ceiling, and it is hard to find room on the table for even a laptop.

"This is the cleanest my apartment has been, because we just shipped hundreds of paintings from this apartment to China for the 50-year China-France relationship exhibition," she laughs.

Gao learned Chinese painting before she left the country. During the "cultural revolution" (1966-76), when much of traditional Chinese culture was strictly forbidden, she learned Chinese painting secretly from many Chinese painters.

"My Chinese teachers greatly affected my painting style. In my early stages, I used to paint many subjects, until a Chinese teacher pointed out that in Chinese traditional painting, simplicity and the spirit of the object are very important."

Gao puts two of her paintings together to demonstrate the changes in her style.

On the left is an oil painting of a cat in a garden. Behind the cat, flowers and grass fill the entire canvas. However, on the right, a big proportion of blank space remains. The entire painting has only a back-and-white cat hanging on two straight lines. That painting, done later, is the style of her most popular work in France.

"Gao excels in landscape, flower and bird paintings. Her adorable and expressive cat paintings reach the acme of perfection. Created with very few brush strokes, they capture fleeting movement and expression, and reveal the delicate and gentle loving nature of a female artist," says Zhu Guorong, vice-chairman and secretary general of the Shanghai Artists' Association.

Her family's close relationship with Soong started during the war against Japan, when Gao's parents took an active part in Chongqing in the activities of the China Defense League against Japan, which was founded by Soong.

When Gao's art career encountered difficulties in China in the 1970s, Soong offered help and encouraged her to pursue her dreams abroad. "My family got help from Madam Soong to go abroad, while I sold a few of my paintings and bought my air ticket to France," Gao recalls.

After settling in France, Gao kept in close touch with Soong and received frequent letters and encouragement from her.

"When my dear aunt Soong saw good paintings, she always mailed them to me to help my painting studies," Gao takes out many postcards and pictures cut from magazines sent by Soong. "Without her encouragement and generous help, I couldn't have become what I am now," she says.

In her letters, Soong expressed the wish to visit her exhibition in France in person but was not able to do so. On the 24th anniversary of Soong's 1981 death, Gao held an exhibition at Soong's residence in Shanghai to honor their friendship.

Gao's traditional Chinese paintings are popular in France and she has a good reputation in the arts, according to Lu Liuying, director of the Soong Ching Ling Memorial Residence in Shanghai.

Gao has delivered numerous high-level lectures in France on traditional Chinese culture and art. She has held more than 40 Chinese painting exhibitions in Europe with her students. As founder of the French-Chinese Culture Association, she has contributed much to the two countries' people-to-people exchanges.

She says she still can remember clearly her first exhibition in 1976 in Paris.

"My first painting sold in France was a painting of a sparrow, to a daughter and mother," she says. "In 1976, to many French people, China was a distant place. But through my art, even if the country is far away geographically, art made it closer to French people."

This was validated by what a visitor to one of her exhibitions told her many years ago: "Because of your art, China is not far away. It entered my heart."

Gao was awarded the title of Chevalier des Palmes Academiques, an order of chivalry for academics and artists by France's prime minister and minister of education.

She also is published in France. French publishing house Hasan has published many of her works, especially her calendar of cat paintings in traditional Chinese style.

She still teaches Chinese painting, and her students create amazingly beautiful traditional Chinese paintings even though they have never been to China. In the past 40 years, many foreigners have learned Chinese painting or calligraphy from her, including the late Princess Grace of Monaco.

Grace was introduced to Gao through the Guimet Museum of Asian Arts in Paris one year before she died.

"The last passion in her life was to learn Chinese calligraphy," Gao recalls. Many times the princess went to Gao's small apartment to learn Chinese painting. Through Gao, Grace learned a lot about Chinese art and culture. After Gao told her that ancient Chinese artists used rainwater to make ink, Grace even collected rain by herself for ink.

Grace also promised Gao a Chinese traditional art exhibition in Monaco, and that she would continue to learn Chinese painting, but those promises went unfilled after she was killed in 1982 in a car crash while driving to Monaco from the royal country home on the French side of the border.

Gao has about 20 students. Her oldest student had taken classes from her for 21 years when she died at age 76 in 2010.

Next year Gao says she will open more exhibitions in Chinese cities such as Shanghai and Hangzhou. "With my students, I founded the school of art called 'French Chinese school'. Normally Chinese people want to learn Western art, but now I am teaching Westerners Chinese art," she says.

"I wish that more and more people in France fall in love with Chinese art, and in China, people will treasure their own culture more."

tuoyannan@chinadaily.com.cn