Chi Chen Name in Chinese

Name in English: Chi Chen Name in Chinese: 程及 [ 程及 ] Name in Pinyin: Chéng Jí Gender: Male Birth Year: 1912 - 2005 Birth Place: Wuxi, China Profession: Artist, Teacher , Illustrator Education: private ly educat ed Awards: 1955, 1st watercolor prize, Butler Institute of Art; 1955, 1 st watercolor prize, Chautauqua Art Association; 1955, Special Award for the Watercolor of the Year, American Watercolor Society; 1956, Gold Medal of Honor, Audubon Artists; 1960, G old M edal H onor, 47th Annual Allied Artists in America; 1963, special award and medal, Audubon Artists; 1966, Gold Medal for Lifetime Achievement , National Arts Club; 1974, President's Award, Audubon Artis ts; 1976, Benjamin West Clinedinst Memorial Award, Artists' Fellowship, Inc.; 1992, Dolphin Medal, American Watercolor Society ; 1996, Gold Medal of Honor, American Watercolor Society Contribution: Chen Chi was born in the first year of the founding of the Republic of China in 1912 . He retained the Chinese form of his name throughout his life, even after taking up residence in the United States. His family name was Chen and his personal name was Chi . In 1926, when he was 14, he went to Shanghai to work i n a oil pressing company to support his humble family. Shanghai in those days was the center of Western cultural and economic influence in China as it had several major foreign territorial concessions. It was also acknowledged as the cultural capital of China, not only because of Western influence, but also by the fact that so many progressive Chinese thinkers and artists found shelter in Shanghai from the incessant fighting regional warlords that plagued China by then. "Although his pay was only one Chi nese dollar a month at the Shun Yue oil pressing company in Shanghai, the company provided food and housing, allowing him at the end of the year to send ten dollars home to his father. The proprietor also took Chen Chi in as a member of the family, educati ng him along with his own children where he was taught by both an English teacher and a traditional Chinese classics teacher with whom he read, among other classical writers, the works of Confucius." Over the years, Chen Chi prospered at the company, risi ng to the position of treasurer. He also took a keen interest in art, taking night classes in the subject, and practicing outdoor painting in the countryside. By 1930, his works were being publicly exhibited in Shanghai. He quit his work and devoted his life to art, entering art school to study Western art in 1931. By his second term his talent was so recognized by the school that he was offered the position of assistant monitor, which fortuitously got his tuition fees waived. In 1932, Japanese troops invaded Shanghai and the art school burned down in the fighting. After the school was reorganized, Chen Chi joined the avant - garde "White Swan Art Club" which regarded Chinese watercolor painting techniques as lifeless because of moribund traditions. The ir views reflected the rising intellectual tide among Chinese intellectuals of the 1920s, who attacked Chinese culture as stuck in traditions and 1 backwardness. They looked to the West for examples to emulate. In politics, this "New Culture Movement" led to the adoption of the newest Western political systems in China, communism and fascism. Democracy, the ideal of the Chinese Republic since its foundation in 191 2 , was seen as discredited because of the inability of Western democracies to successfully cope with the Great Depression , and the seeming success of fascist Italy and the Soviet Union. There was also the manifest failure of the Chinese republican government to defend itself against regional warlords and Japanese invaders. Despite the problems , Chinese movies, music, and the arts started showing a boldness and distinctive style that is not only still recognized today as emblematic of the period , but have continued to influenc e international fashion today. The "White Swan Art Club , " although no t noted for being politically minded, w ere particularly influenced by Impressionist and Post - Impressionist painters. Chen Chi was particularly attracted to Vincent Van Gogh, because of that artist's history of poverty, deprivation, and compassion for the poor. However, Chen Chi and the other artists in the club remained very conscious that they were Chinese at heart. He said about that period, "We realized that even though we wanted modernization in the culture and were looking to the West for new forms, we could not throw away our entire Chinese heritage either. We realized that one has to remain true to one's heritage." His prestige as an artist was recognized with his first one - man show in Shanghai in 1940. Chen Chi found a job at Wu Pen, a girl's hi gh school in Shanghai, as an art teacher. He held the position until 1942 when he became a drawing and watercolor instructor at St. John's University. Founded by American missionaries, St. John's was one of the most prestigious universities in all of Chi na because the university was recognized in the United States. Because of this official recognition, g raduates from St. John's could leave Shanghai and enroll directly into university programs in the United States under immigration exemptions from the Chi nese Exclusion Act and outside the still highly restrictive American immigration quota system after the Chinese Exclusion Act was repealed in 1943. This made the university an extremely attractive place to study for the richest and most talented students all across China. In 1947, Roland Elliot, General Secretary of the World Students' Relief invited Chen Chi to visit the United States on a cultural exchange program. Chen Chi arrived in the United States with the intention of painting China to show to Am ericans. His first one - man art exhibit in the United States was held at the Village Art Center in New York City that year. After touring across the country he began gaining a reputation in the American and international art world . He began making paintin gs to show America to Chinese in China. The communist revolution in 1949 and the start of the Korean War which pitted the United States and China as enemies, ended his hope of returning to China. "So there was a reversal in my thinking. I decided to bri ng the East to the West." He decided to concentrate on exhibiting Chinese techniques of painting and put less emphasis on Western techniques . "I again began to use Chinese rice papers mainly and wanted to emphasize the brush strokes, too. I think this is the most important element — how the artist's character expresses mood and feeling, all in the tip of the brush. Chinese rice papers are more r eceptive than Western canvases, and an oil - paint brush stroke on canvas is not as sensitive as a Chinese brush stroke on Chinese paper. Chinese paper is more absorbent of color and moisture, so if your brush stays longer on the surface of a Chinese paper, the paper absorbs more of the moisture from the brush, thus accepting more of the volume of the paint. If your brush is pressed harder, the paper registers your touch — the strength of your brush stroke on the paper. The paper not only registers the streng th of your brush — its volume and energy — but also its timing; the tempo is a factor, whether you move your brush faster or slower. It is as if several pianists played the same piece. The music may be the same, but each one's touch makes a difference. If you paint a line, it is just 2 as a violinist draws his bow across the strings — the quality of one's touch makes a difference. The same is true of a dancer. When I watched Moira Shearer dancing Sleeping Beauty with Sadler's Wells at the Metropolitan, the ti p of her toe as she danced was just like a brush come to a point. This you don't have in Western paintings. So I decided that I wanted to bring this quality from Chinese painting and express it in the Western - style paintings that I was then doing." His fusion of Chinese and Western Art received national recognition when he was inducted as an Associate National Academician at the prestigious National Academy of Design in New York City (also known as the National Academy Museum and School) in 1954. He bec ame a full National Academician in 1964. He was also inducted as a Board Member of the American Watercolor Society in 1954, which he'd joined in 1950. He earned the honors of the Dolphin Medal and Dolphin Fellowship in the organization. In 1960, Pearl S . Buck, the author of the Pulitzer Prize winning 1931 book, "The Good Earth" that was made into an Academy Award winning movie in 1937, said about Chen Chi, "The Asian influence in Chen Chi's work is always to be found in his persistent search for essentia l meaning. This, combined with his extraordinary mastery of brush and color, make him unique among artists." Raised in China by missionary parents, Buck was the first American woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1938 , and was perhaps the best k nown speaker and writer in America about Chinese subjects at the time. Chen Chi's art was exhibited across the United States at the Portland (Maine) Museum of Art and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (1948); the Miami Beach Art Center (1952); the La Jolla Art Center and the Witte Memorial Museum (1953); and the Charles and Emma Fry Art Museum in Seattle (1955).

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