Posted By: Bill
Posted Date: Dec 09, 2009 (07:59 PM)
On first picture:
From right to left:
(A)Far right, vertical chop mark with five characters:
户县农民画 (simplified Chinese) or
戶縣農民畫 (traditional Chinese)
Please note that in this chop mark, first two characters and the last character are in simplified Chinese but the third character is in traditional Chinese. The fourth character can be either.
The five characters are pronounced in Mandarin as follow:
Hu Xian Nong Min Hua 户县農民画
Huxian 户县 - a county that is about 18-40 km from the Xian city 西安市 in Shanxi province 陕西 of China. Xian was also known as 长安 Chang'an in ancient China, the capital of 15 Chinese dynasties)
Huxian is situated in the middle of the flatland of Shanxi, it has a total area of about 1,255 km with about 47% of them as flat land, providing 55,000 acres of farm land and has a population of 5.6 million people. It was known as the backyard garden of Xian.
For more info about Huxian, see reference (1) and (2)at the end of message.
Nong Min 農民 - peasant or farmer
Hua 画 - picture, painting.
Translation for the chop mark:
The peasant (or farmer) painting of Huxian county.
For more info about Huxian count peasant painting, refer to reference (3).
(B) Two characters left to the chop mark, from top to bottom:
插秧 Chayang - this is the title of the painting
Approximate meaning: The transplant of rice seedlings (or rice shoots)
(C) Four characters to the left of the title:
程敏生作 Cheng Min-sheng zuo
First 3 charcters is the name of the painter -
Cheng Min Sheng, last character means made. Cheng is the last name.
It means here: painted by Cheng Min Sheng.
About the painter:
"Cheng Minsheng, was born in a small village in Huxian county in Shanxi province in 1943. He is a member of both Shanxi Artist Association and Shanxi Farmers' Painting Association. He began to create paintings in the early 1960s under the guidance of the founders of Huxian farmers' paintings, Ding Jitang and Liu Qunhan. His paintings were shown in Japan, the United States, Canada, Australia, in Great Britain, France, Sweden and other countries with a world tour of an exhibition of Huxian Farmers' Paintings."
(Ref. (4))
For more about prints of his paintings:
http://www.artelino.com/forum/catalog.asp?cay=8&gay=163&pp=4&pp1=4&rp=35&rp1=35&rp2=1&lvl=1&sea=&suy=0 (see Fall Harvest posted here)
Found one on eBay, cannot tell if it is an authentic painting or not:
http://cgi.ebay.com.sg/Chinese-Peasant-Painting-cms16-Scenery_W0QQitemZ370282793386QQcmdZViewItemQQptZArt_Paintings?hash=item56369309aa
Other links show his paintings:
http://www.ieshu.com/Art/?GHome/zpzs_deital/uid/10104/id/893.html
This link shows Cheng's self portrait (also posted here):
http://www.farmerpainting.net/showzuojia.asp?id=115
This shows the photo of Cheng and his family, I believe the man in the middle of the photo is him. (see picture posted here)
http://www.huaxang.com/cmszp.htm
Here shows the link of the China Hu Xian Farmers Painting Exhibition Hall in which you can find Cheng's self portrait and paintings of other farmer painters.
It seems the Hu Xian County Farmers (or Peasants) painting originated in 1956 and there are quite a few "farmers painters" and Cheng is one of them.
Here are some farmers paintings seen in the above Exhibition Hall:
http://www.farmerpainting.net/show.asp
(D) The last chop mark is that of the artist and its says "The Painting seal of Min Sheng"
Hope this will help.
Bill
(December 9, 2009, U.S.A.)
References:
(1)http://www.huxian.gov.cn/index.asp
(2)http://maps.google.com/maps?q=%E9%99%95%E8%A5%BF+%E8%A5%BF%E5%AE%89%E5%B8%82++%E6%88%B7%E5%8E%BF&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hq=&hnear=Huxian,+%E8%A5%BF%E5%AE%89%E5%B8%82,+%E9%99%95%E8%A5%BF%E7%9C%81,+%E4%B8%AD%E5%9B%BD&gl=us&ei=flMgS_G1EYiWtge07omaCg&sa=X&oi=geocode_result&ct=title&resnum=1&ved=0CAgQ8gEwAA
(3) http://www.travelchinaguide.com/attraction/shaanxi/xian/peasant-painting.htm
(4)http://www.artelino.com/forum/galleries.asp?cay=8&gay=0&pp=4&pp1=1&rp=1&rp1=1&rp2=1&lvl=1&sea=&suy=0
