M aka Michael Chow
Wild Flower no. 4
2023

About the Item

M aka Michael Chow was born in 1939 into a family of theater in Shanghai, China. His father, Zhou Xinfang, the grandmaster of Beijing Opera, is regarded as a national treasure to this day. In his early years, M developed a passion for the Beijing Opera, particularly the creativity and spontaneity which he inherited from his father, and he dreamed of following in his footsteps, but this was not his fate. At the age of 13, he was uprooted to London, England. He lost everything familiar, even his name. Alone in an alien world, he turned to painting. In 1956, he studied at Saint Martin’s School of Arts and the following year at the Hammersmith School of Building and Architecture. After painting vigorously for the next decade, despite one-man and mixed show exhibitions, M struggled to overcome the attitudes of exclusion that he often encountered. To fulfill his void and loss of identity, he appointed himself as a cultural ambassador to bridge the East to the West. He founded his first restaurant, MR CHOW, on Valentine’s Day 1968, in Knightsbridge, London. Passionately promoting the greatness of China, M orchestrates art, architecture, design and cuisine into a participatory theater. After a fifty-year radical sabbatical, M re-ignited his passion for painting. In 2015, his solo show “Voice For My Father” exhibited at the Ullens Center Museum for Contemporary Art in Beijing, China, followed by Power Station Museum in Shanghai, China. In late 2015 at the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, “Voice For My Father” was conceived as homage to his father, this exhibition sets him center stage as creative master. In October 2023, HBO released “AKA Mr. Chow,” a documentary film exploring M’s story and exuberant return to painting. He invites us into his studio to see his process, which often incorporates a hammer, blowtorch, and even eggs in addition to paint. It’s an exercise in the balance between control and release where method and intention are channeled through emotional expression. M works with intention but encourages the invisible partnership of fate and physics, recognizing that most things in life are created through circumstances we cannot fully control. “Art is necessary. It helps us cope and heal and survive, and it’s one of the things that defines humanity itself. Mr. Chow is a man, a brand, a personality, but above all that, he’s an artist.” - John Serba, in his review of AKA Mr. Chow

Creator:
M aka Michael Chow (1939, Chinese, American)
Creation Year:
2023
Dimensions:
Height: 77.25 in (196.22 cm)Width: 40 in (101.6 cm)Depth: 1.63 in (4.15 cm)
More Editions & Sizes:
77.25 by 40 inchesPrice: $60,000
Medium:
Canvas,Acrylic
Movement & Style:
Abstract
Period:
2010-
Condition:
Gallery Location:
Dallas, TX
Reference Number:
1stDibs: LU2726214271902
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