Chinese Girl (often popularly known as The Green Lady) is a 1952 painting by Vladimir Tretchikoff. Mass-produced prints of the work in subsequent years were among the best-selling of the twentieth century.[1] The painting is of a Chinese young woman and is best known for the unusual skin tone used for her face — a blue-green colour, which gives the painting its popular name The Green Lady.
| Chinese Girl | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Artist | Vladimir Tretchikoff |
| Year | 1952–1953 |
| Medium | Oil on canvas |
History
editThough Tretchikoff maintained that the first version of this painting had been destroyed in Cape Town and he painted a new version during his 1953 tour of the US, researchers have found no proof of this claim.[1] The original sold for £982,050 at Bonhams auction house in London on 20 March 2013. It was purchased by British jeweller Laurence Graff.[2] Since 30 November the same year, it has been on public display at Delaire Graff Estate near Stellenbosch, South Africa.[3] Some scenes of Alfred Hitchcock's film Frenzy (1972) show portraits of the model Monika Sing-Lee (later Monika Pon-su-san, her married name)[1] by Tretchikoff, including this one. The picture is also used as the front cover for the 1990s album Slap! by the British band Chumbawamba.
Model
editMonika Sing-Lee was around twenty at the time, and had some European ancestry.[4] Also known by her married name, Pon-Su-San, she was encountered by Tretchikoff, at the suggestion of Russian dancer Masha Arsenyeva, while working in her uncle's launderette in Cape Town, South Africa.[4] Pon-Su-San died in Johannesburg on 14 June 2017.
See also
editReferences
edit- ^ a b Boris Gorelik (2013). Incredible Tretchikoff. Art / Books. ISBN 978-1-908970-08-4.
- ^ "Bonhams : Chinese Girl by Vladimir Tretchikoff Sold for £982,050, London a world recordprice at auction for the artist". Archived from the original on 2018-05-14. Retrieved 2018-04-22.
- ^ "Tretchikoff's Chinese Girl Unveiled at Delaire Graff Estate". Graff Diamonds press release, 29 November 2013. Archived from the original on 18 July 2017. Retrieved 1 December 2013.
- ^ a b "Face to face with the woman who is Tretchi's Chinese Girl". Mail & Guardian, 20 May 2011. Retrieved 25 January 2014.
External links
edit- "Face to face with the woman who is Tretchi's Chinese Girl" at Mail & Guardian
- "'Chinese Girl': The Mona Lisa of kitsch" at The Independent
- "'I never made money from the Green Lady,' says Tretchikoff's model" at The Guardian
- "Gaze of the Green Lady" at BBC News
- "I was the Chinese Girl in Tretchikoff's painting" BBC News.
- Used as an example Archived 2018-08-21 at the Wayback Machine of kitsch in the BBC TV quiz show QI.