Lin Dongfu's dubbing, drama performances, and especially the image of a tv show holding a wine glass at night are familiar screen memories of Shanghainese. Unexpectedly, the talkative Shanghai Koehler picked up a paintbrush and painted portraits of jazz giants year after year.
Since yesterday, the portrait exhibition of Sir Lin Dongfu in Paris in April has opened at the Bund One Art Museum on the third floor of No. 1 Zhongshan North 1st Road, and is held on the same floor as the Exhibition of Monet and the Impressionist Masters. This is also one of the special events of the "Sino-French Cultural Spring" in 2021, hosted by Shanghai Tianxi Cultural Development Co., Ltd. and specially supported by Shanghai International Cultural Exchange Association.
Photo: Lin Dongfu Courtesy of the organizer (the same below)
Record an audio guide for your own paintings
The exhibition features 46 portraits of jazz legends by Lin Dongfu, including famous jazz musicians Myles Davis, Louis Armstrong and Billie Halledet, most of whom have played or sung the classic "Paris in April". From classical blues to swing music to modern jazz, they are all landmark legends, Lin Dongfu reverently depicts the jazz soul figures in his heart, silently conveying the ups and downs of the fate of the characters in the picture, and recreating for us a vivid, full of vitality and directly hit the soul of the musical legends. In addition, his 26 pen sketches of figures and landscapes also bring different visual touches to the audience.
The audio guides in the exhibition are all recorded by Lin Dongfu himself, and the full and thick voice tells the story behind these works, which can be described as an excellent artistic audio-visual feast.
Pictured: Lin Dongfu's jazz masters
The jazz soul is a treasure
Born in Shanghai in 1957, Lin Dongfu was well known for his early years as a translator, producer, dubber and television program host. In fact, he has loved painting since he was a child, and insisted on self-study sketching when he was young. In 2013, he regained his brushwork under the Italian painter Matteo, with blues and jazz as themes. Lin Dongfu, who loves jazz, once searched for the source of jazz, along the Mississippi River, constantly exploring the soil that gave rise to early blues music. He also collected old black-and-white photographs of blues and jazz legends, trying to translate the light and shadow of the photographs into the light and shadow of paintings, and looking for the color of their skins from the old black-and-white photos.
Pictured: The exhibition site
For the music and life of each of his own characters, Lin Dongfu is like a family treasure. He wholeheartedly expresses the form and god of the jazz masters, and the long depiction process is like a dialogue that touches the soul again and again. He said, "These jazz masters have made my souls belong, so I used that soul to paint them with stories written on their faces. ”
Some art critics commented on Lin Dongfu's unique creation with "wonderful". "There are many people who also love to paint, but I have never seen a painter who is busy and idle. Lin Dongfu, with such a realistic nature of Gengjie, faithfully depicts the eyes and nose bridges of a big face... He personally built a set of pictorial monuments with his paintbrushes. Today, his studio is filled with jazz gods. ”
Every weekend during the exhibition period, the well-known jazz band JZ Music will hold a special performance at a fixed time, so that the audience can enjoy jazz music in addition to watching the exhibition. The exhibition will run until June 20. (Xinmin Evening News reporter Le Mengrong)