An Unfinished Painting: T'ang Haywen Oil Painting from Lorand Gaspar Collection

The following analysis examines a unique oil painting draft by T'ang Haywen from the Lorand Gaspar Collection, which was offered for sale at the Paris auction house Muizon-Rieunier on 23 October 2017. Although T'ang Haywen Archives will list this work as a draft and exclude it from the artist's catalogue raisonné, it is undoubtedly an authentic creation by T'ang Haywen.

Lorand Gaspar, a medical surgeon and poet, and his wife Jacqueline Gutmann were close friends of T'ang Haywen. In 1989, during T'ang's lifetime, Gaspar's first collection of poems, Patmos, was published by PAP in Lausanne, Switzerland, featuring illustrations by T'ang. Gaspar later paid tribute to T'ang with the publications La Maison Près de la Mer (1992) and Amandiers (1996).

In 1992, Gaspar attended the auction of T'ang Haywen's belongings, organized by the French State (the Domains). Like other friends of T’ang, he was deeply troubled by what Raymond Audy described as a “public execution-sale,” where T'ang's works were auctioned in chaotic disarray. The outcry from friends was so intense that the auctioneer, Mr. Yves-Marie Leroux, halted the sale to reorganize it.

When Philippe Koutouzis met Lorand and Jacqueline in 1995, they shared their experiences of the sale, as others had before. Lorand mentioned acquiring this painting at auction, acknowledging its incomplete state, and remarked, "I know, but I find it pretty." The Gaspars maintained contact with Koutouzis, and in 1998, they sent him photographic prints of other works on paper they had acquired from T'ang, either as gifts or purchases from the 1992-93 auctions. However, they never deemed it necessary to photographically document this oil painting due to its unfinished nature.