Philippe KOUTOUZIS
T'ANG HAYWEN AND HIS WORK

Sans titre, circa 1987, encre sur papier Arches, diptyque, 70x100 cm

T'ang Haywen - Untitled, circa 1987, Ink on Arches paper, diptych © ill. Philippe Koutouzis, 2022

The Expert

Philippe Koutouzis has been active in the modern and contemporary art market for over 30 years. Since 1995, he has been preparing the "Catalogue raisonné of T’ang Haywen (1927-1991)", a French painter of Chinese origin who arrived in Paris in 1948. Imbued with the precepts of Taoism, T’ang Haywen invented a new pictorial language at the crossroads of Chinese calligraphy and Western painting. Philippe Koutouzis built his expertise on T’ang’s work through the observation of his paintings and the accumulation of extensive iconography. The archives he has amassed have enabled him to develop specific documentary tools, corroborated by technical and scientific analyses such as handwriting expertise, C14 dating, or chemical analysis of paint components. In 1991, Philippe Koutouzis first moved to Hong Kong where he studied Chinese modernity; he was involved in the creation of the Schoeni Art Gallery. Since 1997, Koutouzis has been a member of ADAGP as the holder of reproduction rights for T’ang Haywen’s work. In 1997, he was appointed project manager at the Musée national des arts asiatiques-Guimet and initiated a significant donation of Chinese paintings for this institution by a major Hong Kong collector, a friend of T’ang Haywen, Yonfan Manshih. From 2003, Philippe Koutouzis was responsible for the creation and development of the Asia program at Marlborough Gallery in New York. His exhibitions Zao Wou-Ki Recent Works (2003) and Chu Teh-Chun, Paintings (2006) changed the status of these two artists in the international market. He also organized several museum exhibitions, notably in 1997 T’ang Haywen, the Tao of Painting at the Oceanographic Museum of Monaco and the Taipei Fine Arts Museum, and in 2002 T’ang Haywen, the Paths of Ink at the Musée national des arts asiatiques-Guimet. At the latter institution, in 2004, he participated in the exhibition Sanyu, the Writing of the Body; in 2008, he organized Manolo Valdés at the National Art Museum of China (NAMOC) and participated in 2010 in Chu Teh-Chun, Retrospective, again at NAMOC. In 2010, he opened the Feast Projects Art Gallery in Hong Kong where he notably organized, in 2012, Zao Wou-Ki, Beyond, the last exhibition organized during Zao Wou-Ki's lifetime (1920-2013). From 2011, Philippe Koutouzis was targeted by several legal proceedings challenging his expertise and rights over T’ang Haywen’s work. All of these concluded with a decision by the Court of Cassation on February 28, 2018, which explicitly rejected all accusations against him (cf. Légifrance Cassation-Chambre criminelle-arrêt 28 février 2018 -16-87.353). Several articles published in Le Journal des Arts, The Art Newspaper, Art Forum and Art Asia Pacific commented on this important decision. (cf. News on the website https://tanghaywenarchives.com/) Since 2013, Philippe Koutouzis has dedicated himself almost exclusively to the expertise and protection of T’ang Haywen’s work. In 2015, he founded T’ang Haywen Archives, under the societies regime of Hong Kong, as a non-profit organization registered in accordance with the provisions of Article 5A(1) of the Hong Kong Companies Ordinance. https://www.tanghaywenarchives.com/news/establishment-of-t-ang-haywen-archives Philippe Koutouzis is a member of the CRSA, New York (Catalogue Raisonné Scholar Association). He participates in the biennial congress of Authentication in Art (AiA The Hague, Netherlands http://authenticationinart.org) where, in 2016, he gave a lecture on the expertise of T’ang Haywen’s signature. The T’ang Haywen Archives website, https://tanghaywenarchives.com, provides regularly updated information on the expertise of the work, its current events, and its market. The UFE commends the very important work undertaken by Philippe Koutouzis for the administration of the French State's Domains in the context of the first sale of T’ang Haywen's works belonging to the French State at ArtCurial on April 5, 2023 / read the article dedicated to this sale in the April 2023 Special Issue of Le Quotidien de l'Art.