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Subject:information on artist and stamp (watercolor i believe)
Posted By: wes Sun, Sep 25, 2016 IP: 174.19.189.138

Hello,
I am sure you get dozens of request such as this, however as most know these paintings are hard to identify. I in hope of not wasting many hours of postings was curious if one of you whom are a little knowledgeable in this are could help me out and possibly recognize the artist
Thank you for your time and attention to my request if you are so inclined





Subject:Re: information on artist and stamp (watercolor i believe)
Posted By: rat Mon, Sep 26, 2016

you've posted this before I think. the women are depicted as Korean, the artist's signature seems to be 晥杏

Subject:Re: information on artist and stamp (watercolor i believe)
Posted By: wes Mon, Sep 26, 2016

Rat
Thank you so much for your reply. However this is the first time I have posted any request on this site.
I thank you for your reply, many sites seem to not wish to help anyone even when they say they will. However do not respond ever.
I trully hope I am not out of place in asking for follow up information.
In your saying this is depicting korean wemon in that does it mean the artist was korean also?
Is there any more information you might possibly be able to provide on the artist?
Once again, Thank you for your help. I am certain it will be a huge jump forward in the search for answers on this painting.
Respectfully,
Wes

Subject:Re: information on artist and stamp (watercolor i believe)
Posted By: rat Wed, Sep 28, 2016

Hi Wes, I don't know enough about Korean art to tell you much but my assumption is that your picture would indeed be the work of a Korean artist, possibly Japanese, probably not Chinese. The characters with which the artist signed seem to be 晥杏, but I don't know their Korean or Japanese pronunciation. Those in the seal are something different but I can't make them out.

Subject:Re: information on artist and stamp (watercolor i believe)
Posted By: Bill H Thu, Sep 29, 2016

Hi Wes & Rat,

I'm ignorant of the Korean language too, though I have visited the country. Actually, both countries if you want to count straddling the border through the DMZ. I agree that the costuming on the women seen in the painting is quite Korean in style.

I ran the characters through the Unicode data base and found that 晥 is transliterated "Hwan" in Korean ("Wan" in Mandarin) and is an old variant of the character 皖, meaning "bright" or "luminous". It's also an abbreviation for Anhui Province in China in both its written forms. The old character seems not to be used in Japan, though 皖 shows up there as the given name "Kan" and a few other variant transliterations in Japanese compound names.

The other character, 杏, has a Korean transliteration of "Haeng and means "apricot". My guess would be that Huan Haeng (환행) may be a Korean given name, since neither character seems to be a surname, at least not in Chinese or Japanese, so far as I can tell.

The only other thought I had is that the Chinese and Korean surname Li (李) bears somewhat of a resemblance to the "apricot" character, in case Rat wants to squint some more over it.

Cheers,

Bill H.

Subject:Re: information on artist and stamp (watercolor i believe)
Posted By: rat Mon, Oct 03, 2016

Bill H, your tenacity and exploration never fail to impress me. To me the way the second character is written, rather sloppily likely due to speed, it cannot be anything other than 杏. By chance I found an image showing what seems to be happening there:
http://66.media.tumblr.com/5d6412201cdf08c23c0f32ea5434f3d1/tumblr_inline_ocqxq6dRRH1tnn25k_400.jpg

Strangely enough though, when I take your advice to look more closely, it appears that the seal impression reads left to right 晥杏 (why left to right? shouldn't it be right to left? but the inscription is top to bottom so the seal must be left to right). but then looking more closely, the 杏 character of the seal seems more complicated than how one might expect to that character to be carved in seal script. could it be that the bottom half is indeed a seal script version of 子 instead of a 口? Am not sure, but you've got the idea stuck in my head now. We may need an intervention from mikeoz...

Subject:Re: information on artist and stamp (watercolor i believe)
Posted By: Bill H Tue, Oct 04, 2016

I don't know it it'll help answer the questions I stirred up, but here are some comparative cursive versions of the two characters, dressed up a bit from my Mainland-published white-on-black book of the written forms. Makes me think apricot has an edge on Li after all, but the Korean calligrapher must've run out of steam before he could swing back toward the left with the tail-end of the stroke. But still better that Mike Oz weigh in than me.

Bill H.



Subject:Re: information on artist and stamp (watercolor i believe)
Posted By: wes Thu, Sep 29, 2016

thank you for your time i do appreciate it


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