Design 
8 December 2016
Design 
116

Ka Kwong Hui

Untitled

USA, c. 1967
glazed stoneware 21 h × 8 w × 8½ d in (53 × 20 × 22 cm)
estimate: $2,000–3,000
result: $2,750
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Signed to underside: [K.K. Hui].
provenance: Acquired directly from the artist circa 1967 by Ardelle and Arthur Smilowitz
exhibited: Hui Ka-Kwong, 17 March - 14 May 1967, Museum of Contemporary Craft, New York
literature: The New York Times, 23 March 1967, pg. L30 illustrates this example Craft Horizons, May/June 1967, cover illustrates this example

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Ka-Kwong Hui

Ka-Kwong Hui was at the height of his artistic career, when he met the Smilowitz family in 1967.  Educated at the Shanghai School of Fine Arts and the Kwong Tung School of Art in Guangzhou, Hui immigrated to the United States in 1948.  Following the completion of his MFA from the prestigious ceramics program at Alfred University, Hui came to New York, where his works drew the attention of a number of noted artists, including Roy Lichtenstein with whom he began collaborating with in 1964. Lichtenstein encouraged Hui to create a series of cups and mannequins and many note Hui’s influence on the artist’s later tableware designs. Works by Hui from the 1960s show a strict linear decorative scheme executed in a brilliant primary palette that sophisticatedly contradicts the rich organically-shaped sculptural forms.  Hui believed “Art is elements. If you can make all these different elements work, that is art.” This remarkable collection of hand-thrown works by Hui was acquired directly from the artist by the Smilowitz family and represents a period in the artist’s career deeply influenced by his pop art contemporaries. Two of the works (Lots 116 and 121) were included in the artist’s solo exhibition in New York at the Museum of Contemporary Crafts in the spring of 1967.

Ka Kwong Hui 1922–2003

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When Ka Kwong Hui immigrated to the United States in 1948, he brought with him a deep understanding and passion for Chinese cultural traditions and art forms. For three decades starting in 1957, he cultivated a fulfilling career as a beloved and talented ceramics professor at Rutgers University's Mason Gross School of the Arts in New Jersey. Though Hui made America his home, his Chinese heritage greatly informed his work. His bold colors and abstracted geometric shapes layer upon architectural forms that often resemble shrines or altars, an aesthetic that ceramics scholar Michael McTwigan termed "Chinese Gothic."

In the mid-1960s Hui was approached by Roy Lichtenstein, then a fellow colleague at Rutgers, to collaborate on a line of ceramic tableware. Hui tested hundreds of glazes and forms over the course of this collaboration. The results were very well received, generating gallery shows, exhibitions, and press in the American contemporary ceramics scene, all of which helped to propel Hui's career. In the ensuing years, Hui's work continued to be rooted in Chinese and Tibetan traditions, but began to show the influence of his work with Lichtenstein through the implementation of a more vibrant palette and the use of white or colored outlines to delineate elements. Often, his forms are wildly organic, producing an inviting, even cheerful emotive response, which deftly balances the scaling of his works.

In 1997, Hui was honored as a Fellow by the American Craft Council (ACC) and his work can be found in public museum collections including Brooklyn Museum, Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, The Newark Museum of Art, the Alfred Ceramic Art Museum, and the Museum of Arts and Design, New York.

Auction Results Ka Kwong Hui

Ka Kwong Hui

Untitled

estimate: $3,000–5,000

result: $5,625

Ka Kwong Hui

Untitled

estimate: $3,000–5,000

result: $4,063

Ka Kwong Hui

Untitled

estimate: $2,500–3,500

result: $3,500

Ka Kwong Hui

Untitled

estimate: $2,000–3,000

result: $2,750

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