1. Chu Teh-Chun or Zhu Dequn was a Chinese-French abstract painter acclaimed for his pioneering style integrating traditional Chinese painting techniques with Western abstract art.
14 Facts About Chu Teh-Chun
1. 2.
Chu Teh-Chun enrolled in the National School of Fine Arts, where he studied under French-trained Fang Ganmin and Wu Dayu.
3.
Chu Teh-Chun was the first ethnic Chinese member of the Academie des Beaux-Arts of France, and together with Wu Guanzhong and Zao Wou-Ki were dubbed the "Three Musketeers" of modernist Chinese artists trained in China and France.
4.
Chu Teh-Chun was born in 1920 in the town of Baitu in Xiao County, which was then in Jiangsu province but now part of Anhui province.
5.
In 1945 Chu Teh-Chun became a faculty member of the architecture department of the National Central University in Nanjing, then China's capital.
6.
Chu Teh-Chun moved to Paris in 1955, where he lived for the rest of his life.
7.
Chu Teh-Chun became a French citizen in 1980, and a member of the Academie des Beaux-Arts in 1997.
8.
Chu Teh-Chun called the painting his "lucky star", after which his career became increasingly successful.
9.
On 17 December 1997, Chu Teh-Chun was elected a member of the Academie des Beaux-Arts of France, the first Frenchman of Chinese origin to be chosen.
10.
Chu Teh-Chun was made a Chevalier de l'Ordre des Palmes Academiques and Chevalier de la Legion d'Honneur in 2001.
11.
Chu Teh-Chun's paintings are now in the permanent collections of more than 50 museums all over the world.
12.
In 2003, Chu Teh-Chun donated an oil painting to the Shanghai Grand Theatre for its fifth anniversary.
13.
At the unveiling ceremony, Chu Teh-Chun called the painting his biggest and best work.
14.
On 26 March 2014, Chu Teh-Chun died in Paris at age 93, closely following the deaths of his friends and fellow modern artists Wu Guanzhong in 2010 and Zao Wou-Ki in 2013.