Yun Gee and Li-lan: Art Without Borders by Stephanie Buhmann

By the time Yun Gee moved to Paris in 1927 as a promising artist in his early 20s, he had already lived on two different continents and experienced emotional adversity. Born in 1906 in Kaiping in Guangdong Province to Gee Quong On and Wong See, he had moved to San Francisco at the age of fifteen in order to join his father, who was working there as a merchant. However, due to the United States' Asian Exclusion Act, which prohibited Asian women from legal immigration at the time, Gee’s mother was not able to follow suit. It would prove more than a mere temporary separation, as Gee would never see her again.

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Yun Gee’s Artistic Journey Across Three Continents: Rooted in China and Exploring European and American Modern Art By Tung Hsiao Chou
Yun Gee's art career was closely related to his personal life experiences. His social and political involvement, together with his relationships from the places he lived, made a great impact on the painterly style of his work. Continue . . .
Asian artists in the United States by D. Scott Atkinson
  Rather than follow a traditional Eastern aesthetic, Gee gravitated toward European modernism, especially Orphism – a derivation of Cubism coined by the French poet Guillaume Apollinaire. Continue . . .
Modern Currents in the Paintings of Yun Gee By Daniell Cornell
Works in the exhibition by early- twentieth-century artist Yun Gee exemplify a patter of shifting attention among artistic currents in Asia, America, and Europe. Continue . . .
Art in America • November 2008

Yun Gee and Li-lan - Jason McCoy by Jonathan Goodman

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Chinese Artists in the United States: A Chinese Perspective By Mayching Kao
[Yun Gee's] early artistic career showed promise, and he was accepted by the artistic circles in San Francisco, and later in Paris and New York. Continue . . .
Postwar California: Asian American Modernism By Paul J. Karlstrom
In the effort to determine possible features of an Asian American relationship to modernism (ways in which the various shared experiences of these communities we have decided to treat as one in this book may be reflected in the art), the life and work of Chinese American Yun Gee offers an excellent starting point. Continue . . .
The Tip of the Iceberg: Early Asian American Artists in New York By Tom Wolf

Today Gee is the best-known Chinese American artist active in the first half of the twentieth century, appreciated especially for the strikingly modernist paintings he made in San Francisco in the 1920s.  Continued...

Transnationals in “In Between” Spaces (Introduction) by Joyce Brodsky
Biracial artists like Maya Lin and Li-lan and transnational artists like Yun Gee may be burdened by the effects of racism and bigotry, but the perceptions they gain from their location in the "third space" may provide them with insights that strengthen their resolve and enrich their art practice. Continue . . .
A Brief History of Painting in Chinese America to 1945 By Anthony W. Lee
A remarkable self-portrait, an oil painting called The Flute Player by Yun Gee, is an even more self-conscious expression of eclecticism and daring. Continue . . .
ART IN AMERICA • APRIL 2006

Yun Gee at Marlborough by Jonathan Gilmore

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The New York Times • November 11, 2005

NYTimes 2005 Yun Gee: A Modernist Painter at Marlborough by Grace Glueck

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Yun Gee, An International Modernist By Ilene Susan Fort
Yun GeeWheels Who was Yun Gee?  A painter, musician, dancer, teacher, theorist, inventor, and more.  A poor immigrant with a wealth of creative ideas.  A solitary philosopher who actively promoted the arts. A dreamer whose personal vision and ambitions were thwarted by the political and social realities of his day. Continue . . .
Before the World Moved In – Early Modernist Still Life in California 1920-1950 By Patricia Trenton
Not-So-Still-Life-large One of Oldfield’s students was the talented young Chinese American Yun Gee, whose still lifes of 1926 and 1927 reflect the importance of color and rhythmic flow of forms. Continue . . .
A Modernist Painter’s Journey in America by Paul Karlstrom

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Among the most advanced modernist painters active in California during the 1920s, Yun Gee forged an international career that began in his native China, included two sojourns in Paris, and ended in New York City with his death in 1963.

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Solitary Proposals by Anthony W. Lee
If in his poetry Gee wrote about the pleasures and pains of a simple material life, grand ideas that could be extracted from banal events, or the meanings that could possibly be construed during moments of hunger and poverty, he had ample experience with the subjects. Continue . . .
Memories of my father by Li-lan
YunGeeLi-lan1 Perhaps I was ten years old, or even younger. I remember the quiet of his dimly lit studio. My father would sit at the dining room table, newspapers covering the worn surface, brush in hand, focusing all his attention on the paper in front of him. Only the shrill cries of his birds interrupted the silence. . . Continue . . .
When East Came West: Asian-Americans are finding their place in the history of modern art by Edward M. Gomez
  Art&Antiques2003007 Among Asian-American modernists of note whose oeuvres visibly melded styles, techniques and sensibilities from the East and West was Yun Gee, who left southern China in 1921 to join his immigrant father, who had already settled in San Francisco. There, a lively art scene exposed Yun Gee to California Impressionism and other European-derived modernist styles. Continue . . .
Artist Magazine • June 2002

Yun Gee’s Early Paintings and Life Journey by Tung Hsiao Chou

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CANS (CHINESE ART NEWS) • March 2002

CANS2002025 A Minimal Vision – Chinese Intellectual Furniture and Specially Selected Paintings by Yun Gee Chambers Fine Art

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ASIAN ART • March 2002

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A Minimal Vision - Chambers Fine Art, New York by Martin Barnes Lorber

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San Francisco, Paris, and New York: Works by Yun Gee from 1926 – 1933 by Robert E. Harrist, Jr.
Yun Gee Many decades before a current generation of young Chinese artists living in the United States achieved international recognition, Yun Gee (1906 – 1963), a restlessly inventive painter, sculptor, poet, and performer born in Guangdong province, held one-man shows in San Francisco, exhibited in Paris galleries, and gave classes in “New Cubism” in his Greenwich Village apartment – all before reaching the age of thirty. Continue . . .
Revolutionary Artists By Anthony W. Lee
Chinese_Revolutionary_Artists_Club We know very few details about a remarkable artists’ collective in 1920s Chinatown, the ambitiously named Chinese Revolutionary Artists’ Club.  It has left little trace, though some important facts remain.  The club was formed during an intensely anti-Chinese moment in San Francisco – just two years after the passage of the 1924 Immigration Act, the harshest legislation yet passed to exclude the Chinese from the United States. Continue . . .
Seducing American Eyes: Artist Yun Gee and the Federal Theater Project by Seunghei Hong • Puppetry International – Spring 2001

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One of the most prolific moments in American puppet theater was in the 1930s, in the midst of the Depression. The federal government’s Works Project Administration (WPA) created the Federal Theater Project, one of whose important elements was a nationwide network of marionette units... Continue. . . 

Yun Gee and China by Chia Chi Jason Wang

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Yun Gee (1906-63) was born during the waning days of the last Chinese empire. The revolution was ready to explode, and young intellectuals were ready to take up the fight to bring about a democratic system of government, freedom, equality, and brotherly love. The hotbed of revolution was none other than Yun Gee's birthplace, Guangdong Province.

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San Francisco Chronicle • October 1995

examiner-logo ART REVIEW / Asian Immigrant Arts Revealed by Kenneth Baker, Chronicle Art Critic

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San Francisco Examiner • OCTOBER 1995

examiner-logo Asian artists test U.S. waters by David Bonetti, Examiner Art Critic

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Preface • The Art of Yun Gee Taipei Fine Arts Museum by Huang Kuang-nan

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Every sincere painter tries to find an apt expression of his time, to communicate the view of his contemporaries, and to express their concern.
This is Yun Gee's believe which has been consistently embodied in his work throughout his life.  The art of Yun Gee not only delineates his versatile career, representing his enthusiastic response toward prevailing modern art trends, but also documents his contemplation of our times. Continue . . . 
Rediscovery – Yun Gee’s Art by Li Lundin

TFAM_slide_04Ten years ago, when American ceramic artist Mrs. Camille Bilops was invited to give lectures on American Drama in Kaohsiung Normal College, she showed several slides of Yun Gee's paintings during a speech session introducing American Artists in New York City... Continue. . . 

A Journey Home by Li-lan
Li-lanChina As a small child, I saw stacks of paintings in his studio, piled high, turned in towards the walls.  I often wished those paintings could move outside to take their place in a bigger world.  Just as it would move my father, it moves me that his work is now being celebrated by his countrymen. Continue . . .
Yun Gee: An Introduction By Ronny Cohen
Early-Modernist-Paintings-1926-1932 Yun Gee belongs to the forefront of early twentieth century avant-garde American art. This exhibition highlights his work of the 1920s and early 1930s, the period when he definitely found his own way by pushing the modernist legacy of the School of Paris forward into deeply personal and strikingly poetical directions. Continue . . .
China: My Father’s Village by Li-lan

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In China I discovered a vital part of my heritage, a vital part of myself. In my father's birthplace - his spiritual home as an artist and a man - the child in me, with all the pain and elation of discovery, was awakened...

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Yun Gee: A Rediscovery by Judith Tannenbaum

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Trained in China, schooled in San Francisco of the 1920s, galvanized by Paris of the 1920s and 1930s, Yun Gee's work suggests both personal discovery and acuity to the cultural terms of painting of the period. . . Continue . . . 

The Rediscovered Genius of Artist Yun Gee by Mary Castagnozzi
yg-and-his-work-3 It was the early forties, and the world was at war. A young Chinese man sat in a Greenwich Village studio, philosophizing and dreaming with friends. Canaries, nightingales, and skylarks sang in birdcages. A candle flickered next to a human skull. . .  Continue . . . 
Oakland Tribune • April 13, 1980

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Paintings of a Tragic Life by Charles Shere

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Yun Gee: Forgotten Synchromist Painter By Diane Cochrane
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In the 1920s when Yun Gee was alive and well and living in Paris, fame, even fortune, seemed certain. At 22 he had already had three one-man shows including one at the prestigious Bernheim-Jeune Gallery; he was married to a well-known poet, Paule de Reuss; and he hobnobbed with such luminaries of the Paris scene as Gertrude Stein, Andre Lhote, and Paul Guillaume.

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East and West Meet In Paris by Yun Gee • 1944
Here in Paris, the new world was combined with the old. What glorious days I spent roaming through the Louvre, viewing the masterpieces, and passing before the cathedrals and the ancient shrines. Continue . . .
The Chinese Artist and the World of Tomorrow – China Monthly by Yun Gee • 1943
YunGee 1940s The art of a nation must necessarily be based on three principles. First, the creator of that art, the artist, must choose, from tradition, the highest aesthetic standards and must interpret them in the best sense; that is, in the attainment of the highest art. Second, he must examine all sides, races, nations, regions, etc., and draw from them reason, understanding and truth.  . . Continue. . . 
The New York Times • December 1940

The New York Times Review: Yun Gee at Montross Gallery

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Diamondism At Last! Or, What It Takes to Make a Good Picture by Yun Gee • 1939
  Diamondism acts as a prism, a one-way glass. It is nothing but a medium, not a cause, but a power. It is up to the artist to use it. Up to the spectator as well . . .
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The Charm of Music • 1930

Whatever masterpiece I play, the tones themselves subsist as living beings. Any cat is the rat’s enemy, But the two together read verses just as the poet does Just as the god of us who are also gods . . .

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The Charm of Music by R.H. Menken
The_Charm_of_Music Seated before us is the painter. He is plucking the strings of a “yungkum,” (Chinese mandolin), with a bamboo shoot. Beside him are his only friends. . . Continue . . .
Paris

Paris is one of the beautiful cities of the world The people there, on the street and in the cafes, Are active.

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Poem for Princess Murat’s Portrait • 1927

I haven't seen beauty since very long. Now I paint the Princess Murat in her Chinese Library in her Chinese costume lying on her sofa.

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The Poetess • 1927-28

Poetess, when your voice unbuttons your gown When clear and pure as the plain sky You bend to look without blinking on the human world

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The San Franciscan • December 1926

One of Our Moderns by Aline Kistler Continue . . . 

Where Is My Mother • 1926

That mother of mine, how it tore my heart To leave her across the sea, I who was part of her – She became all of me –

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