Lalan

Lalan was born in Guiyang, Guizhou, China in 1921. In 1948, she traveled to France with Zao Wou-Ki and enrolled at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris, where she studied composition under Olivier Messiaen and trained in modern dance. After divorcing Zao in 1958, she married the musician Marcel Van Thienen and adopted the name Lalan, subsequently beginning her career as a painter. Her multidisciplinary background transcended the confines of a single artistic medium, establishing her as a pioneer of integrating music, dance, and painting in the post-war Parisian art scene.

Lalan's painting style underwent several distinct transformations. In the 1960s, her work was characterized by vigorous calligraphic lines and intense colors. During the 1970s, inspired by Southern Song dynasty landscape painting and Daoist philosophy, she shifted towards a figurative inner landscape, creating serene and ethereal compositions. In the 1980s, after multiple trips to China, she drew new inspiration from its natural scenery and Eastern culture, returning to an abstract idiom. Compared to her earlier dense style, this period is marked by luminous colors and dynamic, dancing lines. Each brushstroke seems to capture the tension of a bodily movement, translating corporeal rhythm into visual cadence.

Lalan's significant exhibitions include her debut solo show at Galerie R. Creuze, Paris (1960); the retrospective Reverie·Paradise at the Shanghai Art Museum (2009); and The Subtle Body: A Retrospective of Lalan at the Macao Museum of Art (2010). Her work is held in the collections of the French Ministry of Culture, Centre Pompidou, Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Shanghai Art Museum, and Macao Museum of Art, among others.