EXHIBITED:
Hsieh Tong-liang First Solo Exhibition: Metamorphosis Series, Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taipei, March 1985
Hsieh Tong-liang Solo Show, Shanghai Art Museum, Shanghai, May 15-27, 2012

ILLUSTRATED:
Hsieh Tong-liang Sculpture No. 1, 02 Sculpture Space & TaiChi, Taichung, 1985, color illustrated, p. 16; black and white illustrated, p. 17
Hiseh Tong-liang, 02 Sculpture Space & TaiChi, Taichung, black and white illustrated, p. 20
Hsieh Tong-liang Sculpture Exhibition, Chan Liu Art Museum, Taoyuan, 2007, color illustrated, p. 38
Taiwan Artists 100 Years: Hsieh Tong-liang at Shanghai Art Museum, Taipei, 2012, color illustrated, p. 19

This sculpture is to be sold with a certificate of authenticity signed by the artist.

Master sculptor Hsieh Tong-liang was the first artist in Taiwan to receive the privilege of not having to be examined in the National Art Exhibition. One of his students was the illustrious modern sculptor Li Chen, whom he taught how to sculpt the human body.

Pan Hsien-jen, in giving his assessment of Hsieh Tong-liang’s sculpture, said, “Hsieh began with traditional realism in his sculptures. His skill in controlling precision in his forms and vividness in portrayal are well recognized. However, he never lingered with one single style. In his continuous pursuit of liberation of creativity through change, Hsieh built a widely diversified vocabulary of half-abstraction and abstraction step by step. His career as a sculptor reflected the transition of Taiwanese sculpture from traditional to modern art. He also contributed profoundly to improving the materials and training of new talent in sculpture in Taiwan.” (PAN, Hsien-jen, “The Pioneers of Taiwanese Artists, 1941-1950”, National Taiwan Fine Arts Museum, Taichung, 2013, p. 11)

“Look Forward” is one of the most important works from Hsieh’s “Metamorphosis” series. The Taipei Fine Arts Museum acquired the large-sized piece and has put it on long-term outdoor display. The series also includes “Walk Alone” (in the collection of the Taipei Fine Arts Museum) and “Calling” (in the collection of the Kaohsiung Fine Arts Museum). The “Metamorphosis” series (1981-1985) seeks to explore the nature of beauty through “distortion of human figures”; the connotation of beauty through “overturning and liberation of traditional portrait forms”; as well as the form of beauty through “intentionally elongated, flattened, or distorted human figures with plainly sculpted faces to emphasize bodily expressions.”