{{Short description|Chinese guohua painter and art educator}} {{family name hatnote|Li|lang=Chinese}} {{Infobox artist | name = Li Keran | image = Li Keran with Rammanohar.jpg | alt = | caption = Li Keran and Beohar Rammanohar Sinha in 1957 | birth_name = Li Yongshun | birth_date = {{Birth date|df=yes|1907|3|26}} | birth_place = Xuzhou, Jiangsu, China | death_date = {{Death date and age|df=yes|1989|12|5|1907|3|26}} | death_place = Beijing, China | movement = | field = Literati painting | training = | works = ''Landscape in Red'' (seven versions), ''Magnificent Mountains With Gushy Cascades'', ''Shaoshan'', ''Long March'' | module = {{Infobox Chinese |child = yes |c=李可染 |p=Lǐ Kěrǎn |w=Li K'o-jan }} }} '''Li Keran''' ({{zh|c=李可染|w=Li K'o-jan}}; 26 March 1907 – 5 December 1989), art name Sanqi, was a contemporary Chinese ''guohua'' painter and art educator. Considered one of the most important Chinese artists in the latter half of the 20th century, he was also an influential professor at the Central Academy of Fine Arts where he taught a generation of Chinese artists.<ref name=roberts>{{Cite journal|url=http://www.chinaheritagequarterly.org/scholarship.php?searchterm=012_CenturyliKeran.inc&issue=012|title=A Century of Li Keran|last=Roberts|first=Claire|date=December 2007|journal=China Heritage Quarterly|issn=1833-8461}}</ref> Although trained in Western oil painting, he was known for his traditional literati paintings with influences from Qi Baishi and Huang Binhong, two renowned masters in Chinese painting.<ref name="roberts" />
Li's paintings are highly valued at auctions, with several fetching hundreds of millions of yuan. His personal auction record was set by ''Thousands of Hills in a Crimsoned View'' (also translated as ''Landscape in Red''), one of his most celebrated works, which sold for {{CNY|293.25 million}} (US$46 million) in June 2012.
==Biography== left|thumb|Former Residence of Li Keran in Xuzhou Li was born '''Li Yongshun''' ({{lang|zh|李永顺}}) on 26 March 1907 in Xuzhou, Jiangsu province;<ref>{{Cite book|title=徐州名人|publisher=Zhonghua Book Company|year=2005|isbn=7-101-04512-X|pages=273|trans-title=Famous People from Xuzhou}}</ref> his parents were illiterate.<ref name="roberts" />
He showed a talent in art from an early age, and studied painting from Qian Shizhi, a local painter. He enrolled in Shanghai Art Academy in 1923. After graduating in 1925, he returned to Xuzhou and worked as a teacher.<ref name=":022" />
In 1929, Li entered National Academy of Arts in Hangzhou for graduate studies in Western art.<ref name="roberts" /> There, he studied oil painting under the president Lin Fengmian and the French professor André Claudot. In 1931, he joined the Eighteen Art Society (or Yiba Art Society, 一八艺社), which was closed by the government for its leftism. Since the postgraduate school of the academy was defunct, he had to leave, along with other members, in the next year. He went back and taught in Xuzhou again.<ref name=":022">{{Cite book|title=中国大百科全书（第二版）|publisher=Encyclopedia of China Publishing House|year=2009|isbn=978-7-500-07958-3|volume=13|pages=520|language=zh|trans-title=Encyclopedia of China (2nd Edition)}}</ref>
During the Second Sino-Japanese War, Li worked for the Nationalist government, creating many anti-Japanese posters and murals for war propaganda. He became a lecturer in Chinese painting at the National Academy of Arts exiled in Chongqing, in 1943. His talent was appreciated by Xu Beihong, who invited him to teach at the National Beiping Art School in 1946.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://news.takungpao.com/fk/takung/big-park/2013-04/1523332.html|title=徐悲鸿赏识李可染|website=Takungpao|language=zh|access-date=2018-04-19}}</ref> He was mentored by the renowned traditional artists Qi Baishi and Huang Binhong at the academy.<ref name=":022" />
In 1954, Li, Zhang Ding and Luo Ming teamed up for a three-months tour in the lower Yangtze,<ref name=":Laikwan">{{Cite book |last=Laikwan |first=Pang |title=One and All: The Logic of Chinese Sovereignty |date=2024 |publisher=Stanford University Press |isbn=9781503638815 |location=Stanford, CA |pages=138 |doi=10.1515/9781503638822}}</ref> created some landscape paintings on-site. The tour attracted significant attention from other prominent artists, critics, and art collectives.<ref name=":Laikwan" /> The artists sought to use ''guohua'' to depict socialist life in a way consistent with principles of materialism.<ref name=":Laikwan" /> Li had another longer tour among southern China since the summer of 1956, he finished more paintings meantime which are significant for the contemporary Chinese paintings. The works illustrating Mao Zedong's poems had been mainstream in mainland China since the 1950s, ''Liupanshan'' was Li's first step into that, and his style changed afterward. His celebrated painting, ''Wan Shan Hong Bian'' (万山红遍, ''Thousands of Hills in a Crimsoned View'', also translated as ''Landscape in Red''),<ref>The title from a verse of Mao Zedong's ''Changsha, to the tune of Qin Yuan Chun'' (沁园春·长沙) has several translation versions, in Xu Yuanchong's, is "Hill on Hill All in Red, And Wood on Wood in a deep dye"</ref> which influenced many Chinese landscape painters, was completed in 1964.<ref>{{Cite book|title=新中国美术史|last=Zou|first=Yuejin|year=2002|isbn=9787535618115|pages=48–59|publisher=湖南美术出版社 |language=zh|trans-title=A History of Chinese Fine Arts: 1950–2000}}</ref>
During the Cultural Revolution, Li was severely criticized for his signature style, the black landscape paintings.<ref name="roberts" /> After the end of the revolution, he resumed painting and was appointed as the first president of China National Academy of Painting in 1979.<ref name=":022" /> In later life Li had many followers, who formed the "Li School" of the 1980s.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Li-Keran|title=Li Keran|website=Encyclopedia Britannica}}</ref>
Li innovated Chinese landscape painting by integrating native and western techniques, inasmuch as he was inspired by Rembrandt's chiaroscuro.<ref name=":0" /> By introducing shadowing, he developed "backlighting landscape".<ref>{{Cite book|title=美国红牡丹亭珍藏中国书画|year=2011|isbn=9787503951008|pages=112|trans-title=The Chinese Paintings from the Vermillion Peony Pavilion Collection, USA|author1=张以国 |publisher=文化藝術出版社 }}</ref> Besides, he also advocates the practice of sketching or painting from nature on-site.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Encyclopedia of Modern China|last=Pong|first=David|year=2009|isbn=978-0-684-31566-9|volume=2|pages=464–5 |publisher=Charles Scribner's Sons/Gale, Cengage Learning }}</ref>
Li is also noted for the enlivened water buffaloes in his paintings. His calligraphy is deemed to be distinctive, and he is also a competent huqin player.<ref>{{Cite book|title=比我老的老头|last=Huang|first=Yongyu|year=2005|isbn=9787506333634|pages=36–65|publisher=作家出版社 |language=zh|trans-title=The Artists Older than Me}}</ref>
== Art market == Li Keran is one of the most valued Chinese artists in art market.<ref name="lin"/> In May 2012, his painting ''Shaoshan'', which depicts Mao Zedong's former residence in Shaoshan, was sold by China Guardian Auction for {{CNY|124 million}},<ref name="lin">{{Cite web|url=http://usa.chinadaily.com.cn/culture/2012-08/03/content_15642181.htm|title=Li Keran bucks market trend|last=Lin|first=Qi|date=2012-08-03|website=China Daily|access-date=2018-04-25}}</ref> breaking his previous record of 107 million set by the painting ''Long March''.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://english.cntv.cn/program/cultureexpress/20120518/104513.shtml|title=Chinese renowned painter Li Keran's masterpiece fetches 124mln yuan|date=2012-05-18|website=China National TV|access-date=2018-04-25}}</ref>
''Wan Shan Hong Bian'' (''Thousands of Hills in a Crimsoned View'', or ''Landscape in Red''), Li's 1964 masterpiece inspired by Mao's famous poem "Changsha", was sold at Poly Auction in June 2012 for a personal record price of {{CNY|293.25 million}} (US$46 million). It was the largest of seven versions Li painted between 1961 and 1964.<ref name="lin"/><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2012-06/04/content_15473040.htm|title=Chinese painting sells for $46 million|last=Lin|first=Qi|date=2012-06-04|website=China Daily|access-date=2018-04-25}}</ref> In 2015, the smallest version of the seven was sold by China Guardian for {{CNY|184 million}}. The painting had been acquired for just 80 yuan forty years earlier by Beijing's Rong Bao Zhai, which sold it in 2000 for 5 million yuan.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/1879250/mao-zedong-inspired-landscape-painting-sold-artist-li-keran-80|title=Mao Zedong-inspired landscape painting, sold by artist Li Keran for 80 yuan four decades ago, fetches 184 million yuan at auction|date=2015-11-16|work=South China Morning Post|access-date=2018-04-25}}</ref>
In October 2017, Li's ''Magnificent Mountains With Gushy Cascades'' was sold at Sotheby's Hong Kong auction for HK$122 million (US$15.6 million).<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.sothebys.com/content/dam/sothebys/PDFs/EN_Results_Top10_List_Sothebys_HK_Autumn_2017_FineChinesePaintings_2Oct.pdf |title=Sotheby's Hong Kong Fine Chinese Paintings Autumn Sale|date=October 2017|publisher=Sotheby's}}</ref>
== Personal life == Li married Su E in 1931, and they had four children. After Su died in 1938, he remarried sculptor Zou Peizhu in 1944. They had another three children. Li died on 5 December 1989 from a heart attack.<ref name=":0" />
== References == <references />
==External links== * [http://www.chinaonlinemuseum.com/painting-li-keran.php Li Keran and his Painting Gallery] at China Online Museum
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Li, Keran}} Category:1907 births Category:1989 deaths Category:20th-century Chinese painters Category:Educators from Xuzhou Category:Painters from Xuzhou Category:Academic staff of the Central Academy of Fine Arts Category:China Academy of Art alumni Category:Burials at Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery