PROVENANCE:

Acquired directly from the artist by the previous owner who was the artist's dentist in New York.

Sotheby's Hong Kong, May 1, 2005, lot 31

As a 20th century early overseas Chinese artist, who was dedicated to the study of the theory of modern avant-garde art, Yun Gee started his own painting career in foreign fields, and became a leading person in the shift from Chinese artistic campaign history to modernization. Under the circumstances of the discrimination against the overseas Chinese in the early 20th century, Yun Gee embraced the whole world with his persistence in art, and was successfully ahead of the times.

From San Francesco to Paris and to New York, with a keen interest in Cubism, Fauvism, Synchronism, Futurism and Social Realism, Yun Gee learnt from the most modern forms of art, and then started diverse stages of painting styles. Yun Gee created personally characterized paintings with a mixture of the discovery of colors and structures. Although Gee's skills were quite advanced, he despised his fellow countymen who worshiped everything foreign and abandoned tradition. Yun Gee tried to add Chinese traditional elements into western modern art.

The original holder of "Horses" was Yun Gee's dentist, who lived in New York. The traditional Chinese composition creates a casual, elegant atmosphere scene. In the near view, the horses show various postures, the light stokes and the various colors reveal the vitality of the horses. Together with the houses and fields in the distant view, the painting forms a unified entity, and creates an exceptionally leisurely and elegant image space. As Yun Gee's daughter Li-lan recorded, despite the difficulties in life, her father still persisted in remitting money back to China. In order to raise money for the victims who suffered from floods in his homeland, Yun Gee held exhibitions at charity bazaars and performed music and dance as well. All these reflected the great care and the unknown side of the artist, who was respected even more by the people.