Chinese Master Artist Xu Bangda Dies Aged 102 – artmarketblog.com

The passing of Grand Master Authenticator Xu BangDa reminds me of him as a man of integrity, gentle, scholarly and dignified. i personally remember him best when we had “little dragon dumplings”, and he swayed from side to side expressing his enjoyment of the sumptuous delicacy. He visited me for two weeks in Singapore 1996 and we had a good time together. Present also were his wife TengFang, disciple XiaoPing and wife Zhou ZhenYu.
Grand Master Xu had very specific views about authentication of paintings. He would tell you as it is, “real is real and fake is fake, no compromise”. He would not minced his words to tell you that he specialises in ancient paintings, and don’t know how to authenticate contemporary paintings!! Though he wrote a foreword with a prose for my two volumes of Lu YanShao Paintings Collection published in 2001 by Shanghai Arts Publishing Bureau 上海艺术出版社. They were great friends. He opined that Lu YanShao used only one brush to complete his painting.
Once he was asked to write a ditty by a very insistent fellow (influential) and he seemed befuddled, repeating and mumbling “how to write, how to write?” Years ago by a letter he got the permission from the President of China to spend Rmb10m to buy an important artwork by Qiu Ying. Imagine asking the top Palace Museum Authenticator to write a ditty when he could recite and compose poems and antithetical couplets!! For that moment, to me he epitomised the famous quotation by eminent bamboo painting artist Zhen BanQiao, Qing dynasty, a frustrated maverick, “Being befuddled is a blessing, hard to come by.” “难得糊涂”. He gave up officialdom because he witnessed pervasive corruption, and earned his living by selling paintings of bamboo.
By the ancients bamboo represents tall~loftiness; straight each section~every step taken should be straight; the ability to sway with the wind~resilience or like a doll that always uprights itself，不倒翁；and hollow in the center~depicts humility. So a scholar, or gentleman should be such. Grand Master Xu BangDa is a great expert and a National Treasure to China. The World of Art has lost an honest great cultured son of the Great Earth. May his spirit of honesty-value live in us as we have learned from 2008 that, “Greed is the root of all evil.” Let us hope that authenticators will strive to be well regarded and treated. Likewise auction houses and collectors would treasure reliable authenticators.
At this time when China’s art and collectable value leads the world ranking of some 35% market share we should celebrate Grand Master Xu BangDa’s lifelong dedication to the caring of authentic art and his remarkable professional integrity. kc tan
singaporean
BeiJing