Liu Guosong

Place: Bangbu

Born: 1932

Biography:

Liu Kuo-sung (simplified Chinese: 刘国松; traditional Chinese: 劉國松; pinyin: Liu Guosong; born 26 April 1932) is a Taiwanese artist based in Shanghai, China, and Taoyuan, Taiwan. Liu is widely regarded as one of the earliest and most important advocates and practitioners of modernist Chinese painting. He is also a writer on contemporary Chinese art.
Liu Kuo-Sung was born in 1932 in Anhui Province, China. He moved to Taiwan in 1949 with the National Revolutionary Military Orphan School. He completed his art training at Taiwan Normal University, graduating in 1956. He became a pivotal figure in the modern art movement that strived to overthrow the prevailing conservatism in the art world of Taiwan. Liu is the principal founder of the Wuyue Huahui (Fifth Moon Group), which catalyzed the modernist art movement and brought renewal to traditional Chinese painting. Together with his Fifth Moon colleagues, he incorporated Western art concepts and techniques, successfully placing ink painting on the path to modern innovation, for which he has been called the father of modern ink painting.
Liu has held more than ninety solo exhibitions around the world, with more than half at art museums. His works has been collected at more than seventy museums around the world, including the British Museum and the Palace Museum in China. There are eleven art publications in Chinese, English, and German that focus on his art. There are six art text books in US and Germany that either quote his art theories or study his art. He is also the only Chinese artist who has been awarded both China's Arts Award "Lifetime Achievement Award" (2011) and Taiwan's National Award for Arts (2008). He is the first Chinese painter made a foreign honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2016).
Mr Liu is also a lifetime educator. He is currently the Chair Professor at Taiwan Normal University. He was the Head of the Fine Arts Department of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Visiting Professor at the University of Iowa and the University of Wisconsin, Dean of Tainan Art Research Institute in Taiwan, and Honorary Professor of a number of universities and art schools in China.[citation needed]
    Founded the "Fifth Moon Group" with the encouragement of his professor Liao Jichun.
    The first exhibition of the "Fifth Moon Group" in Taipei, initiating a new art movement in Taiwan.
    Described as "genius" by France's Le Figaro Newspaper.     Turned away from complete Westernization to adopt a cultural position in which "the East and the West are merged".     Began to use plaster models on canvas, and to add elements of ink painting to oil paintings.     Worked at the Architecture Department of Tainan Cheng Gong University as teaching assistant for Professor Guo Bochuan.
    Participated in editorial work at Pen Review magazine.
    Influenced by architectural theories, he abandoned oil and canvas, and returned to the world of ink and paper, leading the "Modern Chinese Painting Movement" and developing new painting techniques.    Wrote an article in response to Xu Fuguan's "The Retrogressive Trend in Modern Art", and set off the "battle over modern painting".
    His work "Clouds Know no Emptiness" was collected by the Hong Kong Museum of Art, the first time his work is being collected by a museum.
    Participant of "Asia Pioneer Artist " exhibition tour in 10 cities in Asia.     Collected essays "The Road to Modern Chinese Painting" published by Wen-Hsing Bookstore, Taipei.     Invited to participate in "China Modern Art" exhibition organized and held at Galleria del Palazzo delle Exposizioni in Rome, Italy.
    First US solo exhibition held at Laguna Beach Museum of Art in California.     Studied printmaking at the University of Iowa for three months, traveled around US for four months, and then lived in New York for nine months.     First catalogue, "Paintings by Liu Kuo sung", published by Taipei National Museum of History.
    Represented by Rhodes Gallery.     Invited by the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri to hold a solo exhibition.     Left US for Europe and spent five months in Europe. Returned to Taipei in October.
    Founded Taiwan's "Chinese Painting Study Society" , and continued to advocate the modernization of Chinese painting.
    Solo exhibition "Paintings by Liu Kuo sung" held at the Taiwan National Museum of History, and at the same time "The Growth of a Modern Chinese Artist" by Professor Li Chu-Tsing (English version) was also published by the museum.     Invited by Stanford University Art Museum to participate in "The Development of 20th Century Chinese Painting".
    Invited to create a massive painting "The Midnight Sun" for the International Expo in Osaka, Japan.     Museum fur Kunsthandwerk, Frankfurt, and Museum fur Ostasiatische Kunst, Cologne, jointly held the touring exhibition "Painting of Liu Kuo -sung", and published "The Growth of a Modern Chinese Artist" in German.     Invited by the Arts Club of Chicago to join the "Calligraphic Statement" exhibition.

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