Chu Teh-Chun . Return to Hangzhou — A Return to His Roots at the Heart of the China Academy of Art — Retrospective Exhibition — 19 October 2026 – 18 February 2027

In autumn 2026, the China Academy of Art Museum in Hangzhou will devote a major retrospective to Chu Teh-Chun, in the very institution where the artist began his artistic training at the age of fifteen.

Bringing together more than 120 works, archival materials and previously unpublished documents, the exhibition offers a fresh perspective on the genesis of a singular body of work, examined through the intellectual, artistic and educational context in which the young Chu Teh-Chun was formed.

At the Source of a Vision

At the time of Chu Teh-Chun’s studies, the Hangzhou Academy of Fine Arts was a pioneering institution in China, notably for its teaching of oil painting and its openness to Western artistic movements. Today known as the China Academy of Art, it is one of China’s leading national institutions dedicated to art and artistic education.

Almost a century after the beginning of the artist’s studies, the exhibition therefore represents a particularly symbolic return to his roots. It places his formative years in perspective with the work of an artist who, over the course of an international career, became one of the major figures of twentieth-century abstraction.

Through a selection of works, archives and documents, complemented by scholarly and educational resources, the retrospective revisits the foundations of his artistic journey and the gradual development of his distinctive visual language.

Between East and West

Trained in China and later settling in France in 1955, Chu Teh-Chun developed a body of work deeply shaped by the encounter between two pictorial traditions. His abstract language emerged through a dialogue between the heritage of Chinese painting and the explorations of modern Western art.

The exhibition thus highlights the continuity between his formative years in Hangzhou and a body of work which, through colour, light, gesture and the relationship with empty space, reflects a profoundly personal vision of painting.

Presented in the very place where his artistic vision was first shaped, this retrospective offers a renewed reading of Chu Teh-Chun’s journey and underscores the richness of the exchanges between heritage, modernity and creation that nourished his work.

Almost a century after entering the Hangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, Chu Teh-Chun returns to the institution that was one of the earliest sites of his artistic education.

Practical Information

Chu Teh-Chun — Return to Hangzhou

China Academy of Art Museum, Hangzhou

19 October 2026 — 18 February 2027

With the support of the Fondation CHU Teh-Chun.

China Academy of Art Museum, 218 Nanshan Road, HangZhou, 9 am – 5 pm

Image : Mouvement ascendant – Oil on canvas – 2007 

Image 2 : Poème bleu – Oil on canvas – 1994 

Image 3 : Entre deux rives – Oil on canvas – 1998

Image 4 : Au bord du Jialing – Oil on canvas – 1951

© ADAGP, 2026 Paris / Fondation CHU Teh-Chun