We recently held a three-day celebration October 10-12th in honor of my father on the 10th anniversary of his passing (September 2014) in the Boulder-Denver area. The signal event was a Yishujia (čč”家) = Artist Magazine (Taiwan), September 2024 special insert to commemorate the 10th year passing of my father, a substantial tribute written by you, his former graduate students, artists he mentored, colleagues and myself. This came about at the suggestion of Liu Kuo-sung who prompted An-yi Pan to take charge of this endeavor. Included essays: artists Liu Kuo-song, Chuang Ch, Fong Chung-Ray (all from the 5th Moon Group), Lee Chun-yi (Liu’s, Claudia’s and my father’s protĆ©gĆ©), former students Joseph Chang, Arthur Mu-sen Kao Jane Ju, Claudia Brown, Jean Wetzel, Pat Graham, Janet Baker, Bob Mowry), David Cateforis and myself.
The core attendees included Janet Baker (Phoenix Art Museum), artist Arnold Chang and his wife Jillian (Jr-jye), Janet Chen (KU art history PhD) and her husband, Sobe Ky, Noelle Giuffrida (KU PhD, now at Ball State), Curt Hansman (DePaul), An-yi Pan (Cornell), Susan Tai (Santa Barbara Museum of Art), and Fred Gordon (collector). Hong Zhang (Lawrence-based Chinese ink painter who uses hair as a dominant motif) and her husband John Kennedy (KU Chinese political science) contracted COVID days before and could not attend in person.
Hosts included: Pat Graham, David Dunfield, Stephanie Su (Assistant Professor of Asian Art History CU-Boulder), Einor Cervone (Associate Curator of Asian Art, Denver Art Museum) and myself. We missed Bob Mowry, Claudia Brown, Ankeney Weitz, Janet Carpenter, Jean Wetzel, and Nila Baker, who were unable to align their schedules to join us.
The group first assembled on October 10th at the Denver Art Museum with a storage tour of recent acquisitions of modern and contemporary ink art led by Einor Cervone. Einor is an enthusiastic supporter of contemporary ink and was part of the curatorial team for Ink Dreams the large 400-painting promised gift to the LACMA by the CogniĆ© family. The viewed works included those by Liu Kuo-Sung, Fong Chung-Ray, Liu Shou-Kwan, Chen Ting-shih, and others, many recently donated by Fred Gordon. And, in honor of my father, one painting affixing ink to canvas by a rapidly rising Chinese-American artist Ren Light Pan. To give you some notion of the level of discourse, An-yi astutely noted that the colophon on the Lui Shou-kwan painting looked flat, as if added later (2nd painting below). A catalog from 1978 confirmed that when it was first exhibited there was no inscription! After much discussion, Arnold, an ink artist formerly of Sotheby’s, suggested a plausible explanation for the mystery: the eventual collector probably wanted Lui to write on it and, already being mounted, the diffusion of ink, to the trained eye, was different.
The afternoon included a tour of the Chinese Gallery – calligraphy themed – with works by Fong Chung-Ray, Fung Mingchip, Lee Chun-Yi and Zheng Chongbin. Fong's recent work is shown below.
This was followed by a guided tour of the nearby Clyfford Still Museum that Einor arranged, led by the museum’s eloquent director, Joyce Tsai, who later joined the group for dinner. The evening’s dinner, that I hosted at the Fire Restaurant in the nearby Art Hotel, also included my son Ben Li, who works at Denver Health Emergency Medicine specifically on gun violence prevention.
For further diversion, prior to the meal, I performed the shortened forms of Chen (original form, crouching) Tai Chi and straight swords that I have been studying assiduously with a master in Vancouver for the last dozen years.
On the morning of the 11th, some visitors came to my home to view my father’s collection of modern and contemporary ink, which is strongest in the 5th Moon Group. This was followed by lunch at Pat & David’s home nearby. Painting by Tai Xiangzhou of Beijing.
In the afternoon, we attended the Public Symposium – Prof. Chu-tsing Li and his Chinese Art Historical Legacy – at CU-Boulder organized by Pat Graham and Stephanie Su. I introduced my father concentrating on his serendipitous forks in the road e.g. John Rosenfield handing off his TA Oriental Art Course to my father that diverted him from Northern Baroque art, and Wen Fong organizing a seminar on Yuan painting just for him during my father’s sabbatical, and meeting Liu Guosong in Taipei in February 1964. Janet Baker highlighted several artists shown in the traveling exhibition of my father’s collection in 2007-09. Stephanie challenged us with the varied timeframes used to define ‘modern’ Chinese art. An-yi detailed the rich ferment of artistic movements in Taiwan from the 1930s to 1960s. I discussed several phases of development of Hong Xian’s (Margaret Chang, the main woman in the 5th Moon group) organic ink paintings, and her upcoming solo retrospective at the Asia Society Texas next April. Arnold reminisced about his time as a CU alumnus and his many interactions with my father. Hong, who was still recovering, had originally planned to do a live demonstration of her art on paper and silk at the symposium, but instead via Zoom, introduced us to her recently exhibited works including one at the Nelson-Atkins Gallery. Lastly, Fong now 90+ and still painting daily, participated via Zoom in a dialogue with An-yi Pan (who swiftly translated his remarks in Chinese), about the 5th Moon Group during the 1950s. Mr. Fong (90+ and still painting daily) is shown speaking to us.
Dinner was held at the Dushanbe Teahouse, a unique venue designed and constructed by Tajikistan artisans and craftsmen.
On 12th, the group had home gallery tour of the Prof. Chu-tsing Li collection and my new additions. Perhaps unbeknownst to many, over the past eight years, as a steward of his collection, I became a hobbyist collector and decided to extend his abstract ink art collection into the 21st century. My newly-acquired works include those by women: Hong Xian (5th Moon Group, Pu Xinyu’s last student), Li Chingman (Vancouver, Lui Shou-kwan’s student), Bingyi (Beijing, Dick Barnhart’s last graduate student), the afore-mentioned Hong Zhang, and men: Wang Dongling (best known for his "mad" cursive script calligraphy), Wang Tiande (known for his multilayered, ‘burned’ landscapes), Tai Xiangzhou (paints grand, primordial cosmoscapes), and Zheng Chongbin (specializes in paintings that are earthscape collages). I have been fortunate to visit most of their studios to learn more about their inspiration and process. Once again, the group insights were so helpful as, in one example, one of the group noted tarashikomi (wet on wet) strokes in Hong Xian (Margaret Chang) paintings. One of Margaret's masterworks a diptych "Floating without end" reflecting her neverending travels within China, the US and back to Hong Kong is shown below.
In the afternoon, we took a 5.3-mile hike at 8200 feet at the Walker Ranch Myers Homestead Trail in the foothills above Boulder where we caught views of quaking aspen turning fluorescent gold.
Dinner was outside at the popular, informal Acreage restaurant in Lafayette, a cider/beer venue atop a hill with a commanding view of the Rockies at sunset.
On the 13th, the few stragglers who were not flying home were led by David and Pat on a less taxing downhill hike in Rocky Mountain National Park.
Many, many rich conversations on a myriad of topics took place at meals and on hikes. The experience, although exhausting, was so enjoyable, both inside the museums, home gallery and symposium with so much to digest visually, and, outside with robust verbal exchange amidst the omnipresent, grand Rockies, what could be more invigorating!
An-yi Pan suggested we gather again in two years time!!!
