Message #37720

[SteveC]

冀派一怪  Ji pai yi guai or "The Strange One from the Ji (He Bei) School".  Steven you are right,  it was the Ren Bonian style that the elder Liu seemed close to.  I think my two bottles are in that style.   

I communicate with Liu Yizi by email, so if you want his email I am happy to make an electronic introduction.  I use Chinese but he can understand English ok.  In 2001 Yizi came to my Dad's home in Chicago for a week before going to the Houston snuff bottle convention with my brother Ray.  I was in Beijing at the time.  They had a nice time and met Joey and several other collectors.  I also took Yizi and Suo Jing in 2003? to the Singapore convention where the reception was mild to say the least. 

Remember in 1995 when Yizi started to move far away from the traditional copy-based art,  it was very hard, I do not think he sold a lot of bottles in the early days or got much positive feedback.  But he is very strong in character and treated his work as art and his interpretation of what inside painting could be.  I will make some copies of some of my Yizi bottles that show some of his styles though the 1990s. 

Steve