Richard Lin
Taiwanese-born British minimalist who spent a career refining what white can do.
Richard Lin was born at Taichung in Taiwan in 1933, came to London in 1952 to study architecture at the Regent Street Polytechnic, and stayed to paint. From the early 1960s he worked almost entirely in white — relief paintings in which bands of white oil, aluminium, Perspex and bare canvas are separated by fine lines and slight changes of level, so the picture is read by its edges and its shadows. He showed with Marlborough New London, was included in Documenta in 1968, and later returned to Taiwan. He died in 2011.
The market is now driven principally from Taiwan and Hong Kong, where Lin has been substantially reassessed, with the white relief paintings of the 1960s well ahead of everything else. Condition is unusually decisive here: the works depend on an immaculate white surface and on crisp physical edges, and any discolouration, scuffing, or damage to the aluminium and Perspex elements is both highly visible and difficult to restore invisibly. Works on paper and etchings from the London years exist in modest numbers. Signature and date are normally on the reverse.
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