Cyrus LeRoy Baldridge: Pailou– Peking

Artist: Cyrus Leroy Baldridge (1889-1975)
Title: Pailou– Peking  Date: 1925  Publisher: Watanabe Shozaburo

Size: 26.5 x 39 cm

Scene of an ancient pailou (or paifang) entrance gate, and two workers loading heavy items into a wooden oxcart in the afternoon heat at lower left. This three-gate example has two rows of additional diagonal supports that must have been added to the original structure in more recent times to prevent its collapse. The large tree in the foreground adds to the feeling that the surrounding structures may have been lost to time. In the background we see the outline of a low, crenellated wall that certainly surrounds a place of importance, so perhaps this pailou is associated with that historical landmark.

Due to his years of world travels, his liberal internationalist views and his own modest upbringing, Baldridge treated his subjects with respect and equanimity, eschewing the colonialist attitude that was the norm at the time. Here we see how Baldridge has chosen to highlight an everyday scene, rather than a famous view that presented a more curated and picturesque ideal. 

Watanabe published six woodcuts in total by this artist in the same year; they are unique in style, as little about them aligns the other works that Watanabe was publishing at the time. They feature almost no bokashi (shading), and the pigments are much more opaque than those used in works by other artists, especially Hasui landscapes. Watanabe and his artisans must have collaborated with the artist to replicate the original artworks done by Baldridge. This dealer has usually encountered these works in very faded condition following decades on the wall; we see their real charm and liveliness when unfaded, as here. Pencil signed and annotated x40 and “Pailou-PEKING-25” by the artist in bottom margin.

Cyrus LeRoy Baldridge began his art training at the tender age of ten, and graduated from the University of Chicago in 1911. During World War One he worked as a war correspondent and illustrator in Europe, becoming the top illustrator for the Stars and Stripes and other publications. After the war he published a book of his collected war sketches to show what he had seen. He is quoted as saying “If only I can make the public see what war is–what a dirty, low thing it is, and how brutal it makes men fine clean men– then they’d fight to the last ditch for the League of Nations”.  In 1920 he forged a partnership with the writer Caroline Singer, and after the war they traveled across China and Japan as well as Africa. They later became deeply committed to the rights of Black Americans.

Condition: Excellent impression and condition. Mint.

SKU: BAL005