9. MONTARGIS, THE LAST EXHIBITIONS IN france 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 by the Minister of Education Cai Yuanpei, 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
In Montargis, Yan befriended Georges Thouvenot, a renowned local artist, painter and engraver, who had won the second prize at the Prix de Rome and served as a teacher; he was also president of the art association “Les Beaux-arts du Gâtinais,” where Yan Dehui exhibited his work for several years.
Dedication written by Georges Thouvenot in the book he offered to Yan Dehui’s daughter in memory of her father:
“For Marianne Yen, daughter of the master sculptor Yen Te-Fai, my friend, with my affectionate friendship, Georges Thouvenot“
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 fluency in French, Yan Dehui re-established a professional activity within the Chinese community in Paris. He notably worked for Liu You Huang, President of the Association of Chinese Residents in France, who owned a workshop for manufacturing Chinese lacquer furniture at 53 rue du Faubourg Saint-Antoine. After working as an engraver, Yan later managed the showroom opened by Liu at 16 rue Saint-Nicolas, in a district known for its artisan workshops. This was his final professional activity.
Although disconnected from the artistic scene from the late 1950s onward, he continued to produce small boxwood statuettes and commissioned portrait works in parallel.
From 1971 to 1973, he exhibited for three consecutive years at the Salon des Artistes Français. In 1971, he was awarded the bronze medal for the three works presented.
Three works exhibited in 1971
Yan Dehui receives his award at the Grand Palais, June 19, 1971
3. Return to China, 1977
In August 1977, after 40 years of absence, Yan Dehui returned to China with his daughter for the funeral of his mother Yan Shenyan. Because of her poor health, Louise could not accompany them.
Yan Shenyan, Yan Dehui’s mother
Yan Dehui, his daughter, his brother, his nephews and nieces in Wenzhou
Yan Dehui’s 70th birthday in Wenzhou with his family
Yan Zuopeng et Yan Dehui practicing Tai Chi Chuan
Yan Dehui, Photographer — Wenzhou, 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
Yan Dehui’s life reflects both an exceptional individual journey and a representative embodiment of the major wave of immigration by Chinese artists, intellectuals, and scientists to France during the first half of the 20th century. Voluntary exiles, they sought to usher their country into modernity and to forge closer ties between East and West – each in their own way.
Yet the story of Yan Dehui did not end with his passing. After years of obscurity, his work is gradually rediscovered, both in France and in China. Museums acquire and exhibit his sculptures, while historians and researchers renew scholarly interest in his life, artistic practice and legacy…
