In contrast, George Chann
(1913–1995), who broke out on the American art scene in the 1940s, took a
different approach from Wu’s European style that was deeply rooted in Chinese
heritage. Chann’s early body of work exuded a sense of humanitarian concern for
the underclass before he shifted toward abstraction. Ancient Chinese artifacts
and inscriptions served as his inspirations, and his layering and
deconstruction of Chinese characters, ink, and paper became his tribute to and
re-imagination of Chinese legacy, while he was oceans away from home. Verdigris
blooming across ancient bronze and the timeworn etchings on stone tablets
conjure the fading traces of civilization. In Chann’s work, abstracted
characters emerge as metaphors for cultural remnants, anchoring a distinctive
style of abstract expressionism that reimagines Han character traditions
through a fusion of Chinese philology and Western painterly abstraction.