1. Mian Situ Firewood Gang $495.00
Mian Situ’s epic paintings of the Chinese immigrant experience in the opening of the American West have made him one of the most important painters of our time. These works are often counter-balanced in his shows by intimate portraits of the people and places of China itself. Contemporary rather than historical, a painting such as Firewood Gang shares the joy and exuberant nature of life in rural China.
2. Mian Situ Chinese Laundry $795.00
Nearly 100,000 people swarmed to the California gold fields in 1849. Approximately 25% were foreign emigrants and within a few years the Chinese population—who referred to the new country as Gum Shan (Gold Mountain)—had grown to over 20,000. In 1850, the infant California legislature introduced laws and taxes discriminating against the Chinese people, who were restricted in the gold mines to working abandoned claims for specks of gold.
Willing to work long hours for little pay, many hired out as laborers; others were entrepreneurial and started small businesses. The family laundry was an outstanding opportunity as the entire family worked in the laundry to provide excellent service at a reasonable cost. The more affluent families supported these establishments, which allowed the business owners to grow, prosper and become part of the citizenry.
San Francisco’s Chinatown was a vibrant commercial center where goods and services between the city’s two cultures dominant were exchanged. Situ’s turn-of-the-century historical paintings capture the vivid energy of this period and its people with beauty and grace. For the collector of important American historical art, they also offer a rare glimpse and insight into this thriving cultural crossroad.
Situ received the Gene Autry Memorial Award given in recognition of the most outstanding presentation of three or more works at the 2013 Masters of the American West Exhibition and Sale. Chinese Laundry was the featured work of this award-winning presentation.
3. Mian Situ Golden Spike Ceremony $2450.00
With the Union asunder and in the midst of the American Civil War, Abraham Lincoln recognized that the building of the First Transcontinental Railroad was not a side project to be put aside and left dependent upon the outcome of the war. It was a task that defined the full potential of a unified nation. It would be started despite the war and stand as the restored Union’s first great accomplishment after the war.
A nation set to burst forth on the world was foreshadowed that day. Mian Situ’s Golden Spike Ceremony places us in the middle of that historic moment on May 10, 1869 at Promontory Summit in what was known then as Utah Territory. The railroads, which represented the day’s apex of progress and technology, joined the nation.The diverse melting pot of peoples that would make the United States so great conceived, financed and literally with their hands, hewed out of the North American soil this vital commercial artery.They gathered around as Leland Stanford, president of the Central Pacific Railroad, drove the final spike that officially joined the Central Pacific and Union Pacific railroads.A single railroad tie-length apart sat the CP No. 60 “Jupiter” (blue) and the UP No. 119 (red). It is said that during the ceremony itself, the crowd was so thick that photographers could not get close enough to get a clear shot.
4. Mian Situ The Intruder Angels Camp California 1849 $695.00
The California Gold Rush brought fortune seekers from around the world to isolated mining camps around the Sierra Nevadas. Occasionally, the aroma of the next meal would entice some of the local wildlife to visit a forty-niner camp as well. Most would-be miners had never spent an evening in the wilderness before heading to California, so encountering a hungry or angry California Grizzly was a first. The only certainty here is that a tumultuous uproar is about to occur, the outcome of which could fall in anyone’s favor.
This painting is one of three that Situ introduced at the Autry’s 2010 Masters of the American West Show for which he received the Gene Autry Memorial Award. Mian Situ’s epic depictions of California’s “Eastward Expansion” sit side by side with the Westward Expansion works of Moran, Bierstadt and Russell in both their historical importance and artistic greatness.
5. Mian Situ The Intruder Angels Camp California 1849 $1295.00
The California Gold Rush brought fortune seekers from around the world to isolated mining camps around the Sierra Nevadas. Occasionally, the aroma of the next meal would entice some of the local wildlife to visit a forty-niner camp as well. Most would-be miners had never spent an evening in the wilderness before heading to California, so encountering a hungry or angry California Grizzly was a first. The only certainty here is that a tumultuous uproar is about to occur, the outcome of which could fall in anyone’s favor.
This painting is one of three that Situ introduced at the Autry’s 2010 Masters of the American West Show for which he received the Gene Autry Memorial Award. Mian Situ’s epic depictions of California’s “Eastward Expansion” sit side by side with the Westward Expansion works of Moran, Bierstadt and Russell in both their historical importance and artistic greatness.
6. Mian Situ Bridge to the Spirit World $950.00
The location of this new release by Mian Situ is Canyon de Chelly in northeastern Arizona. Today it is a Navajo Tribal Trust land and home to the preserved ruins of the early Anasazi and Navajo tribes.
“When I was in Canyon de Chelly in May last year,” says Situ, “I saw a beautiful rainbow after a storm. The Navajo people believe that the gods travel on the rainbow because it moves so rapidly. They also portray the rainbow as the bridge between the human world and the other side. Navajo people have lived in Canyon de Chelly for generations and are still living there today, herding sheep and cattle and farming the land.”
7. Mian Situ Journey of Hope and Prosperity $1500.00
By the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Christian missionaries had been in China for several hundred years, which meant that many Chinese immigrants had encountered Christianity before they ever set foot on American soil. Women and children were known as “easy believers” by missionaries and two children devote their attention to the preacher in this image while other Chinese, particularly men, gather above decks to talk and smoke among themselves.
The exquisite paintings of award-winning artist Mian Situ provide an evocative window into a point in history when the collision of East and West impacted the future not only for the immigrants, but for both cultures. Journey of Hope and Prosperity is Artist Mian Situ’s third major Chinese immigrant painting portraying the onboard ship experience. (Previous Greenwich Workshop fine art releases The Golden MountainùArriving San Francisco and Word of God are both Sold Out at Publisher).
Mian Situ will once again show at the Masters of the American West Fine Art Exhibition and Sale, at the Autry National Center in Los Angeles on February 6, 2010. An original painting by Situ recently sold at auction for over $575,000 but with a Greenwich Workshop canvas you can afford to bring home the work of this modern-day master.
8. Mian Situ The Calico Dress Family Laundry 1906 $850.00
Because of the circumstances of turn-of-the-century Chinese immigrants to America, many of them had few alternatives to mining, working in restaurants or laundries. Operating a laundry required relatively little capital, education or English fluency. Often times, entire families lived crammed together in the back of their laundry storefronts. While the parents worked, the children helped however they could.
It was hot, 14-hour-per-day work and after lunch the young man ironing struggles to stay alert while the mother does the mending. Chinese culture, food and clothing may have been replicated in Chinatowns on the West Coast, yet everything around the tight-knit communities was different. “I posed the daughter curiously trying on the calico dress brought in by their American customer,” says the artist. Is she wondering what it feels like to be an American girl or is it only a strange costume?
9. Mian Situ Dressed for the Festival SMALLWORK EDITION ON $250.00
10. Mian Situ Chinese Flower Shop San Francisco 1904 $795.00
The titles of several of Situ’s San Francisco Chinatown paintings include the dates 1904, 1905 and 1906. The early 20th century was a pivotal time for this community.
Chinatown was a vibrant commercial center where goods and services between the two cultures were exchanged and the success of the Chinese drew some negative attention as well. Anti-Chinese immigration laws had been passed and renewed and in 1904, a publicly traded company was incorporated with the goal of acquiring most of the land in Chinatown and dislocating the residents to an outlying area. This goal seemed easily achievable after the earthquake and fire of 1906. Chinatown was one of the worst hit areas and the Chinese-American businessmen and landlords organized to rebuild quickly. That effort, combined with the recognition of the economic value of Chinatown and international pressure, served to ensure that San Francisco’s Chinese community would stay in the neighborhood they had started back in the Gold Rush days of the mid-19th century.
“In this painting I focused on the two Chinese children's expressions as they encountered an American girl” said the artist. “In my Chinatown scenes, I always try to incorporate an element of cultural crossroads.”
11. Mian Situ Pacific Carriage Co. San Francisco 1905 $1400.00
“The Pacific Carriage Company was the predominant carriage company operating out of San Francisco during the early 1900s,” says artist Mian Situ. “Their carriages provided luxury transportation throughout the city. The bowler-topped Irish hack-man has given this Chinese mother, daughter and young ones permission to inspect the carriage while he awaits his wealthy passengers.”
Mian Situ’s lush oil paintings, evocative snapshots of world history, gather more and more acclaim with every passing month. At the 2008 Coeur d’Alene Art Auction this past July, the original painting of Pacific Carriage Co., San Francisco 1905 sold for an astonishing $225,000, shattering the high end of its expected auction price. There is still time to become an early collector of Mian Situ’s art, but it won’t be long before his work is as unattainable as that of Howard Terpning himself.
12. Mian Situ San Francisco April 18 1906 $950.00
Rarely does the individual collector have the opportunity to own a museum-caliber work of art. With San Francisco, April 18, 1906, Mian Situ’s chronicling of the Chinese immigrant’s place in the expansion of the American West has hit a highwater mark.
At five o’clock on that April morning, the city of San Francisco had just begun to stir from its slumber. A mere fifteen minutes later, the entire city was in turmoil as it shook with the force of a massive earthquake. For days, what was left of the city would burn.
On Sacramento Street near Chinatown, the great disaster has driven citizens of all ethnicities and classes from their homes and, as one, they head for safer ground, unsure what the next few hours will bring. This is, perhaps, the defining element of the image, the balance between the human and emotional character of the composition with the magnitude of the historic event.
Collectors with their finger on the pulse of the art world already know that Mian Situ’s star is rising fast. At the Autry National Center’s 2008 Masters of the American West Fine Art Exhibition and Sale the original painting, which had a reserve price of $150,000, sold for $576,100. Situ was also the first recipient of the Gene Autry Memorial Award, given in recognition of the most outstanding presentation of three or more works.
13. Mian Situ San Francisco April 18 1906 MUSEUM EDITION ON $3500.00
Rarely does the individual collector have the opportunity to own a museum-caliber work of art. With San Francisco, April 18, 1906, Mian Situ’s chronicling of the Chinese immigrant’s place in the expansion of the American West has hit a highwater mark.
At five o’clock on that April morning, the city of San Francisco had just begun to stir from its slumber. A mere fifteen minutes later, the entire city was in turmoil as it shook with the force of a massive earthquake. For days, what was left of the city would burn.
On Sacramento Street near Chinatown, the great disaster has driven citizens of all ethnicities and classes from their homes and, as one, they head for safer ground, unsure what the next few hours will bring. This is, perhaps, the defining element of the image, the balance between the human and emotional character of the composition with the magnitude of the historic event.
Collectors with their finger on the pulse of the art world already know that Mian Situ’s star is rising fast. At the Autry National Center’s 2008 Masters of the American West Fine Art Exhibition and Sale the original painting, which had a reserve price of $150,000, sold for $576,100. Situ was also the first recipient of the Gene Autry Memorial Award, given in recognition of the most outstanding presentation of three or more works.
14. Mian Situ Chinatown Market San Francisco 1878 $1375.00
“This is a typical Chinese market in old Chinatown, right here in America. In a market like this, one could find the ingredients for the same food they ate in China and prepare it in exactly the same way,” says artist Mian Situ.“The market looked very similar to those in my childhood hometown in Southern China, where I was often sent on errands, so this painting was inspired by both personal childhood memories and late-19th century photographs of San Francisco.
There’s no better time than right now to begin collecting Mian Situ’s Fine Art Limited Editions. Art of theWest magazine recently designated Situ one of the “8 True Masters” of today’sWestern art world.The original painting of Chinatown Market, San Francisco, 1878 sold for $179,200 at the 2007 Jackson Hole Art Auction, nearly $90,000 above the highest estimated price.This exquisite Fine Art Limited Edition, signed by Mian Situ, and in an edition of only 50, is sure to quickly disappear.
15. Mian Situ Word of God $1800.00
By the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Christian missionaries had been in China for several hundred years, which meant that many Chinese immigrants had encountered Christianity before they ever set foot on American soil.
The women and children (known as “easy believers” by missionaries) at the center of Word of God devote their attention to the preacher. The men stand near the edges of the crowd, distrustful and unwelcoming of the stranger in their midst and perhaps envisioning a future surrounded by such strangers.
The exquisite paintings of award-winning artist Mian Situ provide an evocative window into a point in history when the collision of East and West impacted the future, not only for the men, women, and children involved, but for entire cultures. Individual original paintings by Situ have recently sold for over $250,000, but with a Greenwich Workshop canvas you can afford to bring home the work of this modern-day master. Word of God recently received a Benny award, the highest honor in the 2007 Premier Print Awards.
16. Mian Situ The Entrepreneur $1895.00
Artist Mian Situ’s inspiration for The Entrepreneur, a portrait-within-a-portrait, came from a real photograph dating from the 1890s. Like many recent arrivals to the United States, the man against the backdrop would have wanted something from America to send to his family overseas and a photograph such as this was common.
Situ speculates that the flower in the Chinese man’s hand was most likely the photographer’s idea, as a Chinese man would not have thought to hold a flower in something as important as a photograph. However, in an attempt to learn and fit in with the customs of their new country, such a man (and his family) would be inclined to do what was asked of them or what they were told “should be done in America.” This man and his family have arrived in traditional Chinese dress for their visit to the “modern” American photo studio. The joining of old and new worlds, of east and west, is a central theme in Situ’s work.
17. Mian Situ Everybody Loves a Cowboy $1250.00
There is no more unique an American icon than the cowboy. What child at one point or another has not dreamed of the opportunity to live the life of daring and freedom that the cowboy epitomizes? With the subtlety, elegance and grace of a fine art master, Mian Situ makes an epic statement on the emigrant experience, peeling back the curtain on the process through which cultures blend. The importance of this work was not lost on those that attended the 2004 Masters of the American West Fine Art Exhibition and Sale where it was honored with the Patrons’ Choice Award. Situ is renowned for majestic works of art conveying the Asian-American experience of emigrating and opening a new world. Here we witness the other side of that experience, the assimilation of the American dream.
18. Mian Situ The Toymaker of Ross Alley San F $1400.00
The elderly Chinese immigrant has brought his trade from Chinaùsculpting small figures from dough, which he hand colors.These figures are prized and purchased by the children of Ross Alley in the heart of Chinatown. Originally known for brothels and gambling, Ross Alley is the oldest alley in San Francisco. Today, it is home to the Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory and murals depicting the everyday life of the Chinese American community.
19. Mian Situ Sutters Gold 1850 $950.00
Situ is a master at capturing the experience of the brave immigrants who built the American West.With rich and dramatic use of color, his paintings are snapshots of history in the making.“Gold was found in considerable quantities in the newly erected saw mill of Captain Sutter on the American River Fork.This report was the start of the rumors radiating outward from the Sierras that initiated the Gold Rush of 1849.This news also brought the first wave of Chinese immigrants to the United States,” says Situ, who has preserved an epic point in history that defined America’s West.
20. Mian Situ Twilight Crossing $495.00
Twilight Crossing
21. Mian Situ The Golden Mountain - Arriving San Francisco, 1865 $1450.00
The Golden Mountain - Arriving San Francisco, 1865 . By the mid-1800s, news of the discovery of gold in California reached its way across the Pacific and spread quickly throughout China. Trade relations had brought some Chinese to California as early as the sixteenth century, but the gold rush brought tens of thousands of emigrants in search of better economic opportunities and political freedom. Thirty dollars was the fare for Chinese passage to America and these passengers were restricted to an area of the upper deck unless foul weather forced them below. This painting depicts a first sighting of America, the Golden Mountain. When first exhibited at the Autry Museum at its annual Masters of the American West show in 2003, the painting received the Thomas Moran Memorial Award for best painting and both the Artists" Choice and Patrons" Choice awards recognizing its qualities as a significant accomplishment in the field.
