Chinese painting master Wu Guanzhong passes away

This file photo taken on Aug. 27, 2006 shows the portrait of Chinese painter Wu Guanzhong. Wu, the master of Chinese painting, passed away at 11:57 p.m. on Friday in a hospital in Beijing at the age of 91. Wu, born in 1919, is a native of Yixing, Jiangsu Province, east China. [Xinhua]

BEIJING - Wu Guanzhong, the master of Chinese painting, died at 11:57 p.m. Friday in Beijing Hospital at the age of 91.

Wu, born in 1919, was a native of Yixing, Jiangsu Province, east China.

In 1947, Wu went to France to study Western painting, and returned to China in 1950, after the founding of the People's Republic of China.

He taught at the China Central Academy of Fine Arts and Tsinghua University.

Wu integrated the Chinese ink and wash with Western painting methods. He is now widely recognized at home and abroad as the father of modern Chinese painting.

Wu's representative works include the oil paintings "Hometown of Lu Xun" and "The Three Gorges."

The works of the internationally acclaimed painter are in high demand on the art market.

Sales at public auctions of his works reached US$31.7 million last year, according to a report compiled by Hurun Report in partnership with the Shanghai Art Museum.

"Despite the hefty prices, my father's cherished wish is to enable more people to enjoy his works," Wu's son Wu Keyu Friday told a press conference.

"So he insisted to donate his best works to public museums instead of selling them," he said.

On Friday, in a final gesture Wu donated five ink paintings to the Hong Kong Museum of Art, bringing his total donations to the museum to 52.