Pioneering Chinese abstract painter in the US - George Chann American art collector Michael Brown introduced George Chann for the first time ever to Taiwanese art world in 1995 in an article Geroge Chann: the Protestant of the Art Worldfrom Hsiung Shih Art Monthly (translated by Yang Fang-Chih). In September of the same year, SFSU examined and evaluated this pioneering figure among West coast Chinese artists in the art history. Chann and Yun Gee were among the 77 artists participating in the exhibition. Before the end of the 20th century, people around the world reflected upon history, re-evaluated and then gave back glory to these pioneering artists that have been popular in mid-20th century. Among the fellow abstract painters, Zao Wou-ki and Chu Teh-chun were the representatives of those in France while Chann, who was senior of age, maintained the first person in the USA.

Chann excelled and had an outstanding artistic achievement with portraits, the considered most difficult sort of painting. In 1947, he was invited back to China and stayed for about 3 years, during which he mainly lived in HK and became friends with prominent figures of the Lingnan school such as Chao Shao-an and Huang Chun-pi. He had hundreds of oil and water color paintings during this period of time and held exhibitions in Shanghai, Guangzhou and Hong Kong. It was after he returned to the USA that he started the experiment going from concrete to abstract art. In the latter stages of his life, he used to have interviews taken for oral history by scholars in south California. One excerpt recorded the reason for this change; that, He started to learn western paintings in the beginning. In the early years, he liked to paint poor people, old people and children. After he came back from China he found the art work was changed. It was modernized. He tried to read the books and make his paintings change from old fashioned to modern.The modernization referred to by the artist was the Abstract Expressionism, which culminated in the 1950s in the USA. Motivated by the Oriental spirit in Jackson Pollock, Franz Kline and Mark Tobey's works, Chann gradually developed a Chinese-style abstract painting of which he used to join the postwar abstract art movement in the USA.

Chann's abstract art development is divided into several stages. First is the black-and-white collection during the 1950s in which he employed Chinese characters, marks and inscriptions; colors were not used until later. Up to the 1960s characters and symbols remained, adding on material varieties such as shattered, mix-and-match, cut-and-paste, paper-pasting effects. The expression during this period of time was substantial and sturdy, implying some traces of humanism decline. Later in the 1970s, Chann created colorful tapestry-like paintings that not only embodied modern cityscapes but combined the old civilization and modernism. Using techniques of action painting such as dripping and splashing, he fully illustrated the flamboyant mixture of the old and new.

Abstract Composition was created in George Chann's late period; it's a large rare piece of work. Abstract Composition has the mystic multivocality of Tobey's write writing, its essence is closer to eastern culture; it also possesses Pollock's unrestrained line structures, enhancing magnificence of the whole picture. Abstract Composition materially adapted oil paints, and finished with collage. The patterns are close and tight; the colors are variegated, composing an epic symphony to praise glorious history and civilization. The artist transformed the Chinese characters on bones, shells, vessels, bells, stone inscriptions, and Chinese characters into abstract patterns with modern signiicances; Especially paintings from the artist's late collections, blend lourishing colors and lines, rich in muscle, its woven form having more freedom and maturity; it's a very expressive abstract painting.