Painting the Dao

9 unfettered The Master of the Water, Pine and Stone Retreat at 82 I t has often been said that the past informs the present and future. However, here Hugh Moss, painting under the name the Master of the Water, Pine and Stone Retreat, sets out his manifesto on overcoming boundaries. As the son of well-known dealer in Chinese art Sydney L. Moss (1893–1980), himself an amateur watercolourist, Hugh became a lifelong student, dealer, collector and theorist, his main influence as an artist derived from the Chinese ink-painting tradition. In the following pages Dr Edward Luper considers the artist’s work through the lens of eccentricity and the literati eye, followed by Professor Joan Stanley-Baker’s reflection on the contrasting evolution of spirituality in Chinese and European paintings and the transcendence of boundaries, and Peter Suart’s evocation of the spirit of the literati in a prose poem on art and memory. Hugh Moss then sets out an ambitious Transculturalist Manifesto and expositions of his theory and practice. It is a brave act of any artist to expose the results of their creativity, and even more so, their thought-process and theory, to the scrutiny of beholders and the judgement of time. Hugh’s works are widely admired and particularly known in the Far East, where multiple exhibitions in China, Taiwan and Hong Kong culminated recently in an extensive one-man show at the new Qintai Art Museum in Wuhan in the summer of 2024. After long association between Bonhams and Hugh, we are delighted to present his first one-man exhibition in London. This is with the conviction that his contribution to the Chinese ink-painting tradition and to the crossing and dismantling of global boundaries is meaningful, and that the art theory that permeates his work in what appears to be an increasingly fragmented world is all the more precious and timely. Asaph Hyman Global Head, Chinese Ceramics &Works of Art Bonhams ak24.90 136–7