TANG HAIWEN (1927–1991) Green Composition Ink wash 44 x 60 cm Provenance: Gift from the artist to the current owner Tang Haiwen (唐海文, born Zeng Tianfu in 1927 in Xiamen, China – died in 1991 in Paris) was a leading Franco-Chinese painter of the second generation of Chinese artists who emigrated to France after the war. Trained in calligraphy from childhood by his grandfather, he fled the Sino-Japanese War in 1937 to Vietnam, before arriving in Paris in 1948. Self-taught, he fused the spiritual aesthetics of Chinese ink painting and Taoism with Western abstraction (abstract expressionism, influences from Matisse and Cézanne). His works, often on paper in diptych or triptych format, combine fluidity, spontaneity and harmony. Recognised posthumously, he is celebrated today (exhibition at the Guimet Museum in 2024).