Liu Guofu

Liu Guofu was born in 1964 in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, China. He graduated from the Oil Painting Department of the Nanjing Institute of Arts, also rendered Nanjing University of the Arts, in 1985, and has lived and worked in Nanjing for most of his career.

His paintings are abstract compositions built from layered, atmospheric fields of oil paint, often described by critics as carrying the spatial and spiritual qualities of Chinese Shanshui landscape painting inside a nonfigurative language. In 2011 a major touring solo exhibition of his work moved through three of China's leading public art museums, the Jiangsu Provincial Art Museum in Nanjing, the Today Art Museum in Beijing, and the Shanghai Art Museum, now the China Art Museum, Shanghai, and he took part in the Parallel Exhibition of the 54th Venice Biennale the same year.

From 2016 his international profile widened through 3812 Gallery, which staged solo exhibitions in Hong Kong in 2016 and London in 2018. Later solo presentations included In Praise of Blandness at 3812 Gallery, London, in 2022, a selling exhibition titled Liu Guofu: Requiem at Sotheby's Hong Kong gallery in 2023, and Dusk Upon the Hush: Liu Guofu Works on Paper at 3812 Gallery, Hong Kong, in 2024. In 2026 the Rothko Museum in Daugavpils, Latvia, co-organized Painting of Entropy, a solo exhibition of his recent work, with 3812 Gallery.

Critical commentary on Liu Guofu consistently frames his abstraction as an extension of the Chinese Shanshui landscape tradition rather than as pure formal experiment, emphasizing atmosphere, restraint, and the slow dissolution of form. That framing recurs across his exhibition record, from the 2011 museum tour through the 2022 In Praise of Blandness show and the 2026 Painting of Entropy exhibition at the Rothko Museum.

Liu Guofu's market runs almost entirely through primary and gallery-adjacent channels rather than a documented public auction history. Sotheby's has presented his work through curated selling exhibitions, including Liu Guofu: Requiem in Hong Kong in 2023, and 3812 Gallery has organized his solo and group presentations since at least 2016, but available research did not surface a verifiable secondary-market auction result, sale price, house, or date for this artist. Collectors should treat any auction listing under his name with care: art-market databases contain other artists with similar or identical romanizations, including Liu Guosong, also known as Liu Kuo-sung, and a separately listed Liu Guohui, and results tied to those names should not be attributed to this painter.

There is no confirmed catalogue raisonne for Liu Guofu, and the research available here did not identify a documented, verifiable auction record for him, so any figure circulating under his name should be independently confirmed before being relied upon. His institutional footprint, museum tours in Jiangsu and Shanghai, a Venice Biennale appearance, and a 2026 Rothko Museum solo, is more firmly established than his secondary market, which for now runs mainly through 3812 Gallery and occasional selling exhibitions rather than through auction houses. Because his name closely resembles those of other Chinese artists in market databases, buyers should verify any listing against his 1964 Nanjing birth year and Nanjing Institute of Arts training before treating it as provenance for this artist.