A 75th generation direct descendant of Confucius, Mr. Kwong Yue-Pin, was born in 1935 in Hubei Province, China, where he received a broad education and displayed a special talent for calligraphy and painting, even as a child. In the face of the historical political changes that were occurring in China, Kwong relocated to Taiwan in 1949. He was accepted into the Provincial Taipei Normal School (now the National Taipei University of Education) and studied under teachers Chen Jun-Fu, Sun Li-Qun, and Jou Ying. After holding a position teaching art at the elementary school level, he continued to study landscape painting under Fu Chuan-Fu. To further his studies, Kwong then entered the National Academy of Arts (now the National Taiwan University of Arts) and studied plant and flower painting under Hu Ke-Min, as well as landscape painting, calligraphy, and seal carving under Jiang Zhao-Shen. Over the years, he was inspired by many teachers, and he was both naturally talented and a keen student as well as being hard-working by nature. He gradually displayed his talent in the art world, receiving major prizes at home and abroad and holding many solo and group exhibitions. He also helped edit elementary school art textbooks, making a solid contribution to the arts and arts education.

 

Kwong Yue-Pin, an adept in all forms of painting, has mainly expressed his creativity through landscape paintings, and for many years trekked regularly into the natural world to paint from life. Inspired by the beauty of nature and his never-ending search for meaning, his landscape paintings are all superbly effective and full of life, whether they depict scenes of misty mountains or water flowing under a bridge. Though these works carry on the textural strokes and artistic concepts of his teachers Jiang Zhao-Shen and Fu Chuan-Fu, Kong was still able to incorporate his own ideas and display his individual style. His calligraphy skills are complete and well-rounded, and he can freely express the beauty of the strokes of seal script, clerical script, Northern Wei tablet script, running script, and cursive script, while also making use of the aesthetics of painting. His art is a true example of the mutual cultivation of the arts of calligraphy and painting. In terms of both traditional and innovative art, we can see how Kwong’s personal style gradually developed from modest beginnings through tireless emulation and painstaking cultivation of the skills of painting from life.

 

The museum has especially commissioned this solo exhibition in praise of the artistic achievements of Kwong and in appreciation of his passionate contributions to arts education. The artistic world embodied by calligraphy and painting works is directly inspired by the artist’s own mental world, and Kwong’s mental world is one rich in genuine emotions and a determination to follow strong morals. The other indispensible features of his extraordinary creations are his intense passion for art and his unique talent. About 50 of his calligraphy and painting works are to be exhibited in this exhibition in hopes that sharing these sublime visions of beauty combined with abundant significance and vitality, will allow the public to experience the interconnectedness of calligraphy and painting.