It was the highest of highs, it was nearly the lowest of lows ...
The opening of ‘Hung Hsien: Between Worlds’, a solo retrospective for my 91-year-old artist-friend (‘art auntie’), took place on April 16th at the Asia Society Texas (Houston). It was Margaret’s (as she prefers to be called in the U.S.) first major solo show since 1978-80 … 45 years ago. She had been at the forefront of the then avant garde abstract ink painting movement in Taiwan 50 years ago as the most prominent woman in the 5th Moon Group founded by Liu Kuosung, but then seemed to disappear. Was it because of her innate humility, her being female or becoming less active artistically after age 65?
More than 200 attended including friends (including my friends Kok Peng and Anna from Madison), artists, curators, art historians, and gallerists were feted with an opening panel, light fare and dazzling display of the evolution in her ink art. Margaret was completely thrilled, beaming throughout, and remained her gracious self. Many wanted to speak to and have their pictures taken with her. She was the star! To make it even sweeter, her 95-year-old husband of 67 years, made it along side her in a wheelchair. More on that later.
Margaret’s geographic and artistic journeys have been nothing short of remarkable. She traversed Republican China to war torn Chongqing in the interior during the Japanese occupation, before escaping from the communists to Taiwan, then emigrating the US (Evanston) and temporarily moving back to Hong Kong in mid-life before settling in Houston for the past 41 years. Artistically, her sojourn has been no less cataclysmic. She was the last private student of Pu Ru (Pu Xinyu) the emperor’s first cousin and top ink painting teacher in Taiwan who wanted her to skip university and remain his top trainee. No doubt she would have become a top traditional birds and flowers or landscape painter. Instead, she chose to pursue broad art training at National Taiwan Normal University, and after moving to the U.S. to marry Teh-cheong Chang, she took graduate courses in oil painting, studying with two abstract expressionists, George Cohen and Ted Halkins (U. Chicago-based Monster Roster). She even won three consecutive top prizes at the Evanston Art Fair and could have become a successful abstract oil painter. But after soul searching about her artistic strengths and inclinations, she chose to return to ink painting roots, initially struggling because she did not want to retrace the traditional steps of Master Pu. It took her several years, but she finally finally emerged with her own abstract universe (‘landscapes of the mind’) of organic forms while she maintained her highly refined ‘elegant’ brushwork. In fact, her own journey reprises that of modern Chinese painting from traditional birds/flowers and landscapes to abstract oil painting, and finally a return to abstract ink with her own distinctive aesthetic synthesis.
The exhibition, which runs through September 2025, guides the viewer through all phases of her development, from copying 14th C works, to Greek busts, birds/flowers, Budai (the happy Buddha) as a student (many with calligraphy by Master Pu) to her moody experiments in oil where she diluted oil pigments with turpentine to render them more like Chinese ink, through her transition back to ink, finally emerging with her mature colorful biomorphic vision whether they be appreciated as microscopic, natural rocks and streams, or cosmic forms. All her works are full of ‘qi’ energy, as she describes it, both in its dark concentrated iteration and offset by free and floating lines of movement. She also diverted to small landscapes and driftwood albums as a result of her summer stays in Hornby Island (Vancouver). In Hong Kong while teaching at Chinese University of Hong Kong, she returned to pure monochrome black and white landscapes.
I want to highlight Margaret’s husband T.C. who has been her unwavering supporter and wanted this retrospective as much as she. I highlighted his important role in her career because she didn’t have to support herself as an artist and hence could develop to her fullest – and said as much in my catalog essay. T.C. was an eminent architect as one of the three principals who designed the original O’Hare Airport and the Washington DC subway system, as well as an art museum, symphony hall, civic center, courthouse, tennis clubs, yacht club, parking garages and private residences. And then, at the late age of 42, he plunged into tennis, becoming the President of the Houston Tennis Association and before reaching the apex as the #1 USTA Doubles Team age 80-85! Along the way, he and Margaret won the Houston mixed doubles (couples) championship six times. You can imagine that my ‘tennis uncle’ and ‘art auntie’ became my senior athletic and aesthetic role models for aging well and for their remarkably supportive relationship!
What of the near ‘low’? T.C. had been ill in the hospital or rehabilitation over the past three months with only two days at home before having to return to the hospital. At one point, we became uncertain about his outcome and whether he would be able to attend the opening. As we approached the date, he remained hospitalized, quite weakened. But the skies opened up and in a serendipitously-timed window between hospital discharge and rehabilitation, he was able to attend with the help of a small army of support, oxygen, and wheelchair! We were all moved.
What are the next steps for Margaret’s exhibition? The feedback on the exhibition has been very positive and the show will be traveling to Asia Society Hong Kong in March 2026 during Art Basel HK to capture both Chinese and international viewers. Both Owen Duffy of the Asia Society Texas and I met with the prior and current Directors of the National Museum of History in Taipei (their Smithsonian) respectively and confirmed strong interest. Art journalists are coming to report on her exhibition. This belated rekindling of her legacy … is so important for her and the ink art world.
What of my role? I have been extremely fortunate to view her paintings on my art historian father’s wall as he organized exhibitions and wrote catalog introductions for her. Teri and I, then newly engaged more than 50 years ago, gazed at her paintings in awe and wondered if she would paint a painting for our wedding invitation.
She indeed did and
blessed our union in abstract ink art! How do I repay that formidable debt? Well, this exhibition simply would not have occurred without my recent efforts to instigate interest in curators and art historians until I involved Einor Cervone of the Denver Art Museum who then opened the formal doors. For me this retrospective has been an unmitigated labor of love and a dream fully realized for the both of us …
while she can still enjoy it. And, I have finally repaid our debt to her! I ended the opening panel discussion with her best quote of the week to me as we were going around together during the installation of her paintings: ‘I may be a small person, BUT my brush is very powerful!’ Yes, yes, yes indeed!
