The donation is Li Keran's wish
On June 1, 2009, the Beijing Academy of Fine Arts Art Museum held "The Wisdom of Reality - Donations to Li Keran by Zou Peizhu, Li Xiaoke, Li Zhu and Li Geng" "Exhibition of Works", which displays 108 Chinese paintings, 122 calligraphy works, 13 watercolor works, 9 volumes of sketches, and 45 collections of donated Chinese paintings by the famous painter Mr. Li Keran, a member of the 5th, 6th and 7th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. .
Wang Mingming, member of the Standing Committee of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and president of the Beijing Academy of Fine Arts, said in the preface to the collection of works "An Admirable Deed of Justice": This batch of Li Keran's works donated by Mr. Zou can fully reflect Li Keran's artistic glorious history and achievements. Outstanding artistic achievement. It is conceivable that future generations will gain valuable learning opportunities through this batch of works, and further learn Mr. Li Keran’s endless and simple and sincere pursuit of art, creative spirit and noble thoughts and sentiments.
Previously on May 14, 2009, the Beijing Higher People's Court made a final judgment on the inheritance case of Mr. Li Keran, which had attracted much media attention. The works donated this time were the works identified by the court as belonging to Zou Peizhu.
The inheritance case of Mr. Li Keran has finally been settled.
A few days ago, Zou Peizhu accepted an exclusive interview with a reporter from this newspaper, and for the first time talked about some "family matters" that had attracted media attention in the previous stage.
Regarding this donation, Zou Peizhu said that donating works to the country was Li Keran’s wish, and it was also the result of the joint efforts of the two of us for which we have been fighting for our whole lives.
Zou Peizhu said that in the early 1940s, Li Keran was determined to reform Chinese painting so that the excellent culture of the Chinese nation could be promoted, and he wanted to do something for this disaster-ridden nation. This is also the aspiration made by Li Keran and I, two cultural people who have witnessed and experienced all the sufferings of the 20th century. We have worked hard for this all our lives and have never changed. In the 1940s, Li Keran proposed to "fight in with the greatest strength and fight out with the greatest courage." After that, Li Keran headed towards the goal regardless of the cost. I shouldered all the burdens of the family, worked part-time to support the family, worked multiple jobs by myself, and later gave up my accomplished sculpture career.
The works donated this time are all representative works of Mr. Li Keran from various periods, and can represent Mr. Li Keran's artistic achievements as a whole. How is this done? Zou Peizhu said that Li Keran carefully preserved works from various periods of his life, and in his later years he exchanged his early works for higher-priced late works. He did this in order to preserve the complete series and to transfer all his works throughout his life. The research results are handed over to the country and left to future generations. During his lifetime, he said many times that he hoped that his art could bring glory to the country like table tennis. At that time, the price of works was not high, so he did not dare to think about building an art museum. In addition, he died suddenly in 1989, so he did not make arrangements for it.
Unite the children to donate
Li Keran has been married twice and has seven children. Zou Peizhu said that after Keran passed away, my biggest wish was to unite the whole family to complete the donation. to get through those difficult days. When Keran was still alive, he was busy with work and was afraid of being disturbed, so few of his ex-wife's children came back. But after he passed away, during New Years and holidays, I asked everyone who could come to come back. No matter where there was an event, the whole family would go together. Those who couldn't go would also send representatives. After the funeral, I took out a stack of deposit slips for each of the seven children. Because Keran had just received royalties at that time, and when he had some money, I divided the deposits among them. Each slip had 50 yuan and 100 yuan. of. The amount saved varies according to each person's living situation. For example, the bosses Li Yushuang and Li Zhu were in trouble, so they each saved 15,000 yuan. Li Geng and Li Xiao are painters and their lives are relatively good. They only saved 5,000 yuan each. The other children are around 10,000 yuan. The older children were very moved at that time. At that time, the price of dyeable works was not much, and the price of landscapes was a little more. How could it be compared to the hundreds of millions they calculated for me now.
Zou Peizhu said that because everyone knew the significance of the works her father left at home, they didn’t say they wanted to divide the paintings at first. They just said: "Mom gave us some works as a souvenir." In this way, I learned from them. From Dad's various paintings, including our collections and calligraphy, I gave them some representative ones. Later, they brought it up several times, and I understood their living needs, and they couldn’t sell it for much money at that time. Some children need to go to school; some want to buy a house, so I agree. It was divided into four times, and each person took away 16 works, some calligraphy works and a small amount of collectibles.
Later, in the lawsuit, only one of them admitted 16 tickets, and no one else admitted so many tickets. Although I have taken away most of their works, I still hope to unite them to donate, because I want to make Keran happy and relieved. To make society feel that Keran's children are different from others, I think the family relationship has been very good in the sixteen or seventeen years since Keran's death.
Changes brought about by the skyrocketing prices
In the second half of 2005, the country’s economy was booming and the price of Chinese paintings skyrocketed. Zou Peizhu said that the number of dyeable works increased more than ten times, and his ideas changed. , changes to the previous agreement. As Lao Tzu said, "Misfortune lies where blessings depend, and blessing lies where misfortune lies."
Zou Peizhu’s original plan was to donate his works to Li Keran’s 100th anniversary in 2007 as a gift. But just before the 100th anniversary of Li Keran, in April and May of 2007, she received an indictment from Li Keran's ex-wife and daughter. During the two-year litigation process, media reports mainly focused on two sensitive issues: the flow of Li Keran's works after his death and the income from selling his paintings.
Zou Peizhu said that Li Keran was a painter and made a living by painting. For life, for friendship, for the country, or for various reasons, the paintings he sold, gave away, specially created, or went out for other reasons during his lifetime are no longer our family, let alone Li Keran's inheritance. It would be untrue to say how many works have disappeared. Besides, according to the law, of all the works left by Keran, I own 9/16, and each of the other seven children only has 1/16. In other words, if I am the custodian, the works I keep are my own, and the works that "fly" are also my own. These works are the hard work of Keran and I throughout our lives, and they were saved by me despite many disasters. The purpose is to show it to future generations, how can I make them "fly"?
In addition, they said that I sold dozens of works without authorization for 100 million or hundreds of millions, and the media also It keeps coming out to stir-fry, so I’ll just say it briefly. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, how much were paintings worth at that time? After Keran passed away, I led my family to donate ten paintings and ten pieces of calligraphy to Li Keran's former residence built for him in Keran's hometown in Xuzhou. Went; they wanted to set up a family foundation and took 11 landscape paintings. Later, they went bankrupt due to various reasons. Each person distributed tens of thousands of yuan; they donated it to some national institutions such as Zhongnanhai, the Forbidden City, the United Front Work Department, and the Jiangsu Provincial Art Museum. They all knew about the paintings and participated in most of the activities; some paintings that Keran promised to give before his death, such as Chen Xiangmei's original appointment with Keran on the afternoon of December 5, but Keran passed away in the morning; like the paintings they sent to Jingfeng Hotel The driver drove Keran for two years, and Keran promised to give him two paintings; and so on. In this way, I later gave the paintings to Ke Ran according to his wishes. There are also some paintings sold for funerals, purchases, construction of cemeteries, establishment of foundations, exhibitions, and books for Ke Ran. After Ke Ran's death, he held nearly 20 exhibitions and published dozens of books. It is through these exhibitions and published albums that more and more people in society understand, recognize and affirm Ke Ran, and Ke Ran's works are has today's value. My principle is that if the wealth created by Ke Ran is used to develop his career and achieve his goals, as his relatives, there should be no objections. In the past 17 years, no one has raised any objections, and everyone is aware of and participated in most of the activities.
I have an explanation for Li Keran
Zou Peizhu said that this donation was only a large part of the works awarded to me by the court. I am also in talks with the National Art Museum of China to establish a museum dedicated to Li Keran, and I will donate some works from the remaining portion. The fundamental difference between them and me is that they want to sell their works to achieve a so-called "win-win". I don’t agree. I don’t want a win-win situation. What I have is to be donated to the country and left to history and future generations.
Zou Peizhu said that she originally didn’t want to talk about household matters, and wanted to reduce the negative impact on Keran. Keran's ex-wife passed away in 1938. Keran and I met in 1943. At that time, he was a poor teacher with nothing but four children. Everything today was created by the two of us. The two of us set goals together and worked hard together. He and I spent nearly half a century of hard life together and endured all the hardships. We have experienced wars, natural disasters, multiple political movements, and illnesses together. I can only describe this life as "fearful." In the 20 years since Keran's death, I have presided over his career and spent all my financial, energy and various social resources on the promotion and research of Keran's art.
This cost a lot, but I never felt bad about it. As for my personal life, nothing has changed in the 20 years since his death. As before, no rest, no enjoyment. If it weren’t for Li Keran’s career, I would never be willing to sell a painting. Anyone who knows me knows that my life is far worse than the average person.
I really don’t want to talk about the housework. There is no point in talking about it. It will only hurt Li Keran’s heart even more. I have to tell you today, it is the first and last time, because I have been married to the Li family for sixty-five years, and I have never had a peaceful life. Looking back on this, I feel very painful. I will be 90 years old in just over a month. Today I have basically fulfilled Li Keran’s and my wishes, and I can give an explanation to Li Keran. Other reputations and reputations are no longer important to me as an old man. I just hope that they can go their own way.