Hsaio Chin

    TITLE:  none 

    MEDIUM: lithograph

    CREATED: 1966

    SIGNED: Yes

    SIZE:  24″ x 18″

    TITLE:  none 

    MEDIUM:  lithograph

    CREATED: 1967

    SIGNED: Yes

    SIZE: 18″ x 24″

Hsaio Chin  (1935 – )

Born in Shanghai in 1935, Hsiao moved to Taiwan when he was 14, where he graduated from the Fine Arts Department of the National Taiwan Normal University, and in the mid-1950s he became part of the Ton-Fan Art group, which pioneered avant-garde abstraction drawing on Western and Chinese art traditions as sources of inspiration. To widen his knowledge of Western art, Hsiao traveled to Europe and the United States from the late ’50s to the ’70s, living for some time in Madrid, Barcelona and Milan. During this time, Hsiao got to know influential exponents of the post-war abstract avant-gardes, such as Antoni Tàpies in Spain, Lucio Fontana and Piero Manzoni in Italy, and Willem De Kooning and Robert Raushemberg in the US. Though Western art critics have often described the influences of Western abstraction in his work, Hsiao insists that his art practice is personal and spiritual research inspired by Eastern philosophical principles: “I use the medium of painting and sculpture,” said Hsiao in conversation with Maurizio Vanni in 2005, “as others use philosophy, meditation, mysticism, religion.”