Sculpting the imagination

Besides the two A Bing statues, the exhibition gathers many of Qian's signature works, which profile historical figures of luminosity, such as Du Fu, the eighth-century poet, and Li Qingzhao, a female poet living in the 11th and 12th centuries, to show his exploration of integrating the xieyi (drawing the spirit) method in sculpture.

The xieyi manner of classical Chinese painting employs loose strokes and expanses of colors to exhibit a poetic, sometimes aloof, sensation.

When Qian sculpted, he blended the xieyi approach with reduced details to contour his subjects in a minimalist mood.

"He was also inspired by the semiabstract tendency of Chinese calligraphy," Yin says. "His treatment of human bodies was not to focus on the accuracy of details but the beauty of form and the mood he created by which he wanted to reveal the inner world of his subjects, their demeanors and temperaments, and the specific historical and cultural contexts they lived in."

Qian once said, "For artists, it is one of their missions to study the human body, to show it and the vitality of life".

His experiment presenting a summarized beauty is also vivid in the hundreds of nude drawings he made with ink and Chinese brushes. They were among his donation of nearly 1,000 of his works to Tsinghua University years ago.

Qian took a professorship position at the Academy of Arts and Design of Tsinghua University in 2008.

Dozens of these nude drawings are on show to unveil a lesser-known aspect of his work if compared to his sculptures, some of which were commissions for display at public venues.

Qian said: "The fewer strokes, when necessary, the more space is left for people to imagine.

"Letting people imagine would make what is defined and determined become infinite and boundless. How marvelous it is."