YUN GEE
It was San Francisco in the mid-twenties and the art community was all eyes for the work by one young painter whose extraordinary gifts had only recently come to notice.
This "genius" painter was YUN GEE, a long hair lad with a fine Chinese ancestry. He had worked briefly under the tutelage of Otis Oldfield and already the art galleries were begging for his paintings.
In 1927 he was on his way to Paris at the invitation of Princess Achille Murat whom I had taken to his studio on her visit to my home in San Francisco. Soon he was exhibiting at Ferme la Nuit and Berheim-Jeune, in Paris, and"chez" Paul Guillaume. Acclaimed by critics and connoisseurs alike canvases such as "Confucius", "Lao Tze" and his portraits of "Monsieur Guillaume", "Pierre Mille" (noted as modern Confucius), "Andre Salmon" (called the father of contemporary art), and "Ambroise Vollard" were being acquired by Paris official galleries and collectors.
YUN GEE favors, for his work, the label of "Diamond-ism". To be sure this "ism" is his very own as is his approach to color and form. If he has become a man of the western world who lives and looks like a New Yorker, he has retained his own definite set of certitudes and he is, admirably, the forever YUN GEE. He has not been impressed by the fashionable trends in contemporary art, nor has he been swayed by fads. Truly he is a purist in relation to his own exacting standards and his performance is, at all times, arresting and unique.
This retrospective exhibition should serve to reawaken New York to the reality of a great artist in its midst.
JEHANNE BIETRY-_SALINGER
In our first show we are honored to present perspective and recent paintings by Yun Gee, internationally known American artist.
On our walls, filled with facets of light, the pictures depict the varying progress. of his Diamondism to its fullest achievement.
You will also find included prophetic pictures famous in the past, particularly "The Right Route to Freedom", with a youthful President leading the free nations, is as pertinent to the moment as when it was painted fifteen years ago.
