Asian art from the Post-War Paris School.
Post-War Paris School of Asia.
Lise Cormery Gallery, Paris.

“Contrary to popular belief, Asian art is not uniform; it contains treasures of originality, certainly less salesy and easier to understand than stereotypical art. Whether they are dedicated to abstraction or figuration, most often they still magnificently master the freehand technique which allows them to draw the most complex and regular shapes that one can imagine without help. of any tool, only the hand, the brain, the brush or the pencil are at work. We are far from the West's disaffection for the art of the masters, when young painters or sculptors imagine that Rodin's Balzac did not require a myriad of drawings to convey to our eyes the strength and majesty of the character.
We can wonder why these art adventurers left their distant country to reach Paris. They chose Paris for reasons most often political and economic, but also artistic. These oriental scholars came from Asia in search of Western artistic knowledge and an art market then abundant and dynamic, which was not yet 'commodified' in games of economic power closely linked to politics. the lowest. These art researchers also came attracted by the aura of Paris and its generous welcome towards artists, whether gallery owners who did not pay for their services and trusted their faithful friends, the collectors, then erudite and keen artists who adopted the works of the newcomers to adorn the walls of their homes.
Likewise, the government inaugurated with Malraux in 1964 a generous policy with Social Security which was not based on income and opened workshops for them for modest sums, thus Akagi benefited from a magnificent workshop with a terrace which overlooked the 15th arrondissement. of Paris even if he wrote “misery”. But “1984” will cut short this windfall. However, a hard worker with his wife, he soon had an apartment on rue Croix Nivert to store his paintings.
Permanently exhibited at the Gallery of Lise Cormery who wrote her Catalog Raisonné, they were going to choose new paintings there for their “Akagi Biennales” from 1990 until 2005, where Jean-Marc Léri, Chief Curator of the Carnavalet Museum, organized a magnificent retrospective at the Musée du Parvis de Notre Dame in parallel with that of the Galerie de Lise Cormery and, let us give thanks to Director Léri if the Musée Carnavelet has a magnificent collection of Akagi, made up of more than a hundred works.
Akagi loved spending Christmas with his family with Lise Cormery and her son Arnaud, whom he painted after the death of the painter Gilles Cormery. But our memories are fading and we have forgotten that Japan was devastated at the time, which is why Kojiro Akagi left for Paris, of which he would become a marvelous witness, a great painter and fine scholar.
Akagi left us with regret in 2020, but, very sadly, from his beyond, when Akagi joins his faithful wife who he missed so much, he will see his children, his dear paintings; even those in gestation who never left his workshop where he resided and worked day and night; stolen by highway bandits, perfidious “friends”, who had hardly set foot there during his lifetime. His Japanese family fortunately alerted the OCBC who will soon find his watercolors and oils which will return to his Japanese land where he was born and died, after having loved Paris, passionately, madly.


All artists featured in this exhibition are in international museum collections. These include Key Hiraga, Kato Hajime and Kojiro Akagi from Japan with more than a hundred works at the Carnavalet Museum in Paris; Chen Chin and Liu Yang Jer in the collection of the Taipei Museum in Taiwan; Zhu Xinjiang, Xu Beihong, Ma Desheng, Li Shuang from the People's Republic of China; Ha Indoo and Riu Min Ja, Moon Chin, Li Jae Yong, Kim Han, present at the MMCA Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Seoul, and the South Korean Delegation of the Paris Arts Olympiad; Kam Zin Choon and Min in the collection of the National Museum of Singapore.
The Paris Arts Olympiad exhibitions of 1991 and 1992 also made it possible to present the excellence of South Korean art for several months with a large artistic delegation. This international event under the Presidency of President François Mitterrand, the Mayor of Paris Jacques Chirac, Juan Antonio Samaranch, President of the International Olympic Committee, and Nelson Paillou President of the French National Olympic and Sports Committee was organized for the CNOSF by the Galerie de Lise Cormery.
He was preceded in Paris in 1990 and 1991 with Les Jeux de l'Avenir de Paris organized by the Galerie Lise Cormery for the CNOSF with the exhibition of the great internationally renowned artist of kinetic and optical art from the School of Paris from Venezuela, Asdrubal Colmenarez.
The Paris Arts Olympiads of 1991 and 1992 followed the Seoul Arts Olympiads of 1988 where the city created for this occasion a painting museum and a museum of monumental outdoor sculptures, the SOMA, where one can still admire a monumental sculpture by Moon SHIN, who represented South Korea and Asdrubal Colmenarez, among all the invited artists, who came from all over the world to exhibit and represent 20th century art. This happy initiative thus made it possible to reconnect on a large scale with the ancestral tradition of the Olympic Games of yesteryear Greece where the artistic competitions were parallel to the sporting games, this in accordance with the wishes of Pierre de Coubertin, its initiator in the 20th century.
All these artists then came from very far away to discover Paris, then the City of Light, which has since become the City of Dust. The Lighthouse of Arts that was Paris is no longer, the play of powers has done its work even if a few enthusiasts still resist. However, South Korea and China are now the new Eldorados for artists seeking museum collections.
Taiwan is not forgotten with Chen Chin, master of grassy calligraphy who paints horses literally alive on oriental paper. In 1987, they ran on rollers several meters long along the white walls of Lise Cormery's gallery. Liu Yang Jer, more restrained, more geometric, plays on innovation and tradition like the many Chinese artists exhibited since 1986, who will be part of the “Tradition and Innovation” exhibition at the Beaubourg Center Pompidou Museum and at the same time at the Lise Gallery Cormery in 1987 with the art critic and sinologist expert Christophe Comentale. »
“The 2024 exhibition at the Lise Cormery gallery presents the works of Asian artists, most of them part of the Paris Arts Olympiad exhibitions in 1991 and 1992, including Boong Hyun Choi, South Korea | 1941; Chen Chin, China | 1930; Choi TAI SHIN, South Korea | 1940; Chung Ha MIN, South Korea | 1938; Cui ZHENG ZHI, South Korea | 1950; Deok Hyu Choi, South Korea | 1922; Dhali Al-Mamoon, Bangladesh | 1958; E. X Jing, Singapore | 1920;
Geeta Dass, India | 1963; Guang Jun, China | 1938; Ha In-Doo, South Korea | 1930; Hajime Kato, Japan | 1925; Ho Sook, South Korea | 1940; Ikage, Japan | 1950; Jeong kyu lee, South Korea | 1940; Joung Soo KIM, South Korea | 1940; Jun Myung Ja, South Korea | 1942; K. Nakata, Japan | 1950; Kam Zin Choon, Singapore | 1931; Katsunori Hamanishi, Japan | 1949; Kenji, Japan | 1958; Key Hiraga, Japan | 1936 – 2000; Kim Han, South Korea | 1938; Kim Han Chang, South Korea | 1945; Kim Joo-young, South Korea | 1948; Kim Young joo, South Korea | 1940; Kojiro Akagi, Japan | 1934; Kong Ok Sim, South Korea | 1950; Kuk-Jin Kang, South Korea | 1939; Kwan Soo Park, South Korea | 1950; Li Ja-gyong, South Korea | 1943; Liu Yang Jer, Taiwan | 1944; Lu Chong Min, Singapore | 1933; Mr. Sakai, Japan | 1940; Ma Desheng, China | 1952; Man Soo Park, South Korea | 1942; Ruy Min Ja, South Korea | 1942; Min Park, South Korea | 1940; Minoru Kano, Japan | 1930; Moon Jang chull, South Korea | 1945; Moon shin, South Korea | 1923; Myung Ja chun, South Korea | 1939; Oh Choon ran, South Korea | 1938; Oh Kyung hwan, South Korea | 1941; P. Chang, South Korea | 1930; Park Hang do, South Korea | 1939; Ryu Hu rial, South Korea | 1940; Shim sang ok, South Korea | 1940; Song Jiha, South Korea | 1939;
Sung Soo Kwak, South Korea | 1950; Surk Wham Park, South Korea | 1961; Tetsuo Araki, Japan | 1937; Utagawa Kunisada Toyokuni III, Japan | 1800; Wu Biduan, China | 1926; Xu Beihong, China | 1895 – 1953; Y CHOO, South Korea | 1938; Y Kumanda, Japan | 1938; Yo Ichikawa, Japan | 1929; Yoo Ha song, South Korea | 1939; Young-Joo KIM, South Korea | 1920; Zhu Xinjian, China | 1953.”

Excerpt from “The Post-War Paris School (1945-1999) Artistic and political history”, Lise Cormery, Michelangelo publications, Paris 2021, Reissue 2024.