Legal Proceedings & Criminal Procedures

"The work of T'ang Haywen has given rise to various legal actions. Some were directed against me in order to challenge my rights to the work or even the existence of a brother of T'ang Haywen; others were initiated by me as part of my mission to protect the work. The document below sets out the facts and legally accessible documentary evidence of the outcome or current progress of these legal actions between 1998 and 2020. As the various ongoing cases evolve or conclude, we will update this document." - Philippe Koutouzis

(Below is the excerpt from Legal Proceedings & Criminal Procedures, article updated on 17 May 2021)

"T’ang Haywen was born in Xiamen (Amoy) on 20 December 1927.
He arrived in France on 15 March 1948.
He died in Paris on 9 September 1991.
He had not made a will and was pronounced deceased without heirs. The auctioning of his estate was thus managed by the French Administration of National Domains (D.N.I.D).

In 1993, shortly after setting up residence in Asia and considering that the life and work of T’ang constituted a subject matter of the greatest interest, I decided to engage in active research and began to meet with the numerous acquaintances of T’ang Haywen. Song Huai-Kuei (1937-2006), known as Madame Song, put me in contact with his closest friends, the Audy-Waldé family: Raymond Audy, his wife Caroline Waldé and their son Fabrice as well as Caroline’s sister, Janine Waldé. Fabrice, today the only surviving member of this family, recently declared in a testimonial: “on the day following my birth, T’ang along with my father was the first to visit my mother in the maternity hospital. Throughout my childhood, whenever he was home from his travels, Haywen would arrive for lunch or dinner at the house two or three times a month.” In June 1991 following a lunch at home with the Audy-Waldé family, T’ang began to show signs of physical discomfort. Janine Waldé, general practitioner (GP), sent him for a consultation at the hospital, he was then hospitalized in July. Everyday the whole family took turns at his bedside until he passed away in September 1991.

In July 1994, Janine Waldé transmitted to me the address of T’ang’s brother that she had only recently come across and added that T’ang had written both in Roman script and in Chinese characters on several labels so that she could have clothes sent to his family in China. It was thus thanks to this label that I was able to track down the brother of T’ang in China in August 1994. On 22 September 1995, I concluded an agreement with him before a notary that enabled him to recover the proceeds of the sale of the estate of T’ang Haywen and that granted me the reproduction rights to the artist’s works.

It is the questioning of the existence of this brother by various individuals in 1998 then in 2011 that became the stated grounds for several legal proceedings directed against me and that were in part the basis for two legal proceedings instigated by me.

The T'ang Haywen Archives website exists to provide an objective and professional source of information for interested persons."