Artists

Ai Xuan
Artist Statement about Schoeni Art Gallery's late founder - Manfred Schoeni, 2007

I met Mr. Manfred Schoeni during the earlier half of the 1990s. He had a quick mind, was confident, assertive, and had a genuine gift for rhetoric. He was also restless and extraordinarily charismatic. He was the only westerner who actively encouraged the Chinese artists who clung to the Realist movement, even as the whole of mainland China stood against Realism. Mr. Schoeni was a man of courage and vision, who trusted the artists. There was an incident that occurred in the early 1990s that has left an enduring impression on me. One day Mr. Schoeni brought an English collector to my studio. Mr Schoeni said the English collector had travelled a long way to see me. I was very touched. This collector, as he put it, always wanted to see “the hen that lay the eggs”. On 27 April 2004, one week before Schoeni's death, he came to my studio again. I reminded him of that meeting that had taken place ten years ago. He said, “Yes, that was a very important collector. Since then he has kept on buying your work. He likes your paintings very much.” That was the last thing he said. That afternoon, when he and his assistant walked out of my studio, a ray of springtime sunshine beamed down on Manfred Schoeni's vivid, confident complexion, reflecting a promising future. The sun was bright that day. But Schoeni's laughing face was even brighter.