A new exhibition at Singapore's National Gallery, "City of Others: Asian Artists in Paris, 1920s-1940s," highlights the experiences of Asian painters who worked in Paris during the interwar period. These artists, including Le Pho, Sanyu, Tsuguharu Foujita, Liu Kang, and Georgette Chen, faced marginalization and exoticized expectations from European critics, who dismissed their work as either not "Asian" enough or insufficiently Western. Despite these challenges, they produced significant bodies of work blending Eastern and Western traditions.
The exhibition matters because it corrects a historical oversight, bringing belated recognition to artists who were long overshadowed by their European contemporaries. Driven by growing Asian collector purchasing power, artists like Le Pho and Sanyu have seen their auction prices soar—Le Pho's "La famille dans le jardin" sold for $2.3 million in 2023, and Sanyu's "Quatre Nus" fetched $33 million in 2020. This renewed academic and market interest reframes the narrative of modern art, acknowledging the contributions of Asian artists to the Parisian avant-garde.