9. MONTARGIS, THE LAST EXHIBITIONS IN PARIS AND THE RETURN TO CHINA
1. Montargis, the 1960s and 1970s
A long history has been woven between Yan Dehui and Montargis, known for the presence of several hundred Chinese students in the 1920s. It all started thanks to a young Chinese, Li Shizeng, who came to study agricultural techniques. In 1912, he proposed to the Mayor of Montargis to welcome his compatriots for training purposes. Coming as part of the Work-Study Movement created in China, the students divided their time between their school and a job that was supposed to pay for their stay. Many worked at the Hutchinson rubber factory, including Deng Xiao-Ping, the future Chinese leader. This city was also the crucible of their political education from which their revolutionary doctrine emerged. Some of them later played an important historical role in the building of the new China. About forty years later, when the majority of these students had left, by chance the Yan family settled near this city.
Georges Thouvenot, self-portrait.
There, Yan became friends with Georges Thouvenot, a renowned local artist, painter and engraver, second prize of Rome and teacher. He was also president of the artistic association
” Les Beaux-arts du Gâtinais ” where Yan Dehui exhibited for several years.
During these exhibitions, Yan won the grand prize for sculpture for his marble self-portrait in 1967. The following year, he received the congratulations of the Jury for his boxwood sculptures, a nude and the bust of his 16-year-old daughter.
Marble Self-Portrait
2. The Return to Paris – The Society of French Artists – The Latest Exhibitions
The family returned to Paris in 1970. Thanks to his knowledge of French, Yan was able to find an activity in the Chinese environment. He worked for a long time for Liu You Huang, who owned a workshop making Chinese lacquer furniture. Yan was first an engraver, then he managed the store that Liu opened on Rue Saint Nicolas, in the craftsmen’s district around Rue du Faubourg Saint Antoine. This was his last job. Nevertheless, although he was away from the art scene from the late 1950s, he continued to sculpt boxwood statuettes and portraits on commission. For three successive years, he exhibited at the Salon des Artistes Français, from 1971 to 1973.
Works by Yan Dehui presented in 1971
Yan Dehui was awarded the bronze medal for the three works exhibited in 1971
Yan Dehui receives his award at the Grand Palais
June 19, 1971
3. 1977, the return to China
In August 1977, after 40 years of absence, Yan Dehui returned to China with his daughter for the funeral of her mother Yan Shenyan. Because of her poor health, Louise could not accompany them.
Yan Shenyan, mère de Yan Dehui
Yan Dehui, his daughter, his brother, his nephews and nieces
Yan Dehui’s 70th birthday in Wenzhou with his family
Yan Zuo Peng et Yan Dehui
practicing Tai Chi Chuan
Yan Dehui Photographs – Shanghai 1977
Yu Yuan Garden, Shanghai, 1977
Yan Dehui passed away on January 31, 1987. He rests next to his wife, who died on April 19, 1992, in the new cemetery of Orgerus, in the Yvelines, about fifty kilometers west of Paris, where Louise’s family was from.
Orgerus, February 1987
