Bridging East and West

Tseng Yuho, a Beijing-born artist and scholar based in the United States, was one of the few Chinese-Americans allowed to enter New China in the early 1970s.

The entry is a metaphor for Tseng's life: living in two worlds and gaining international fame through her unique blend of artistic talents.

Tseng made a name when former US President Richard Nixon, on his ice-breaking visit to China in 1972, presented two specially bound copies of her book "Chinese Calligraphy" to Chairman Mao Zedong and former Premier Zhou Enlai as a token of friendship.

The following year, Tseng had a chance to tour China. She would go for a month to research cultural relics.

An internationally renowned painter, calligrapher and scholar of Chinese art history, Tseng is an emeritus art professor at the Honolulu-based University of Hawaii at Monoa. For many years, she was also the curator of Chinese art at the Honolulu Academy of Arts. Her late husband, German art historian Gustav Ecke, was the first curator of Oriental art at the museum.

Today her eyes still exude excitement about China.

But this excitement is something different than what she felt on her research trip, which came in the midst of China's chaotic "cultural revolution" (1966-76).

Staring recently at the high rises and rivers of cars outside the window of her 19th-floor room at the Xiyuan Hotel in Beijing, Tseng, 75, spoke of her fire-and-ice relationship with the city where she was born, began her career and has often visited.

Her birthplace now is seeing dramatic changes take place daily. The contemporary art scene of her homeland has been dramatically changing as well.

"Each time I come back, I can feel the rapid progress (of China's art world)," Tseng said in the Beijing accent of her youth. She spoke of the mushrooming number of art museums and exhibitions, the rising social status of artists and the increasing diversity of artistic expression in China.

She is always eager to see for herself the latest developments in creative art experiments by the many talented younger generations of artists. She checks out not only painting and calligraphy, but also tea ceremonies, folk art and visual art from traditional to avant-garde.

"She is so energetic and so enthusiastic about learning despite her age, which impresses and encourages me very much," said Gu Gan, a 58-year-old Beijing artist who received Tseng at his home last week. Though admirers of each other's art for a long time, they had never met before.

Tseng's unremitting aspiration to learn the arts allowed her to beat the odds as a woman, who had it hard in the arts field (though Tseng said gender was never a major obstacle).

Born in an educated, modern thinking Beijing family in 1925, Tseng displayed unusual artistic talents in her childhood. At 17, she graduated from the Art Department of the Catholic (Furen) University in Beijing, where she studied traditional Chinese painting and calligraphy with artists Pu Jin, Pu Quan and Qi Gong.

At Furen she began to rise in the Beijing art scene. She also met Ecke, who was a professor of Western art history at the school.

Ecke taught European languages, literature and art history in China for 26 years.

They got married in 1945 and moved to Hawaii in 1949, when Ecke was offered the position of curator by the Honolulu Academy of Arts. Ecke died from a stroke in 1971. They had no children - so they could concentrate better on their careers.

Tseng now lives alone in her Hawaii home and studio on a hill overlooking the Pacific Ocean. There she recalls her husband as the person who influenced and inspired her the most.

"Gustav and I were husband and wife," she said. "Also, we were spiritual friends who understood and supported each other in life and career."

The couple always talked about art among friends and travelled together around the globe 10 times to see art collections all over the world.

Before 1971, Tseng mainly taught Chinese painting. Her personal artistic style also began to mature during that period. In her first works, she experimented with a technique she developed and calls dsui hua, literally "assembled painting."

Absorbing the traditional techniques for mounting Chinese paintings, she assembled disparate pieces of paper to produce a new effect similar to - but different from - collages or mixed media artwork by contemporary Western artists.

Before 1971, Tseng showed her works in the United States, France, Sweden, Switzerland and Germany. These shows elevated her reputation.

"The paintings of Tseng Yuho during her great creative period from 1955 through the 1960s represent a watershed in the history of Chinese landscape painting," Richard Barnhart, a professor of Chinese art history from Yale University, wrote in the catalogue for Tseng's international 1992 exhibition.

The exhibit travelled from the Shanghai Art Museum to the China National Art Museum in Beijing, the Taipei Fine Arts Museum, the Hong Kong Art Centre and the National Museum of Singapore.

"We can look back and see Tseng Yuho in Honolulu, Zao Wouki in Paris, and Wang Chi-ch'ien in New York carrying traditional Chinese painting out into the world, engaging in a dialogue and undergoing transformation with the civilizations and cultures outside China," Barnhart added.

In 1966, Tseng got her MA degree in Asian Studies from the University of Hawaii, and in 1972 she received her PhD in Far Eastern Art History from New York University.

Later Tseng began expanded her studies to Chinese art history. Her research has enhanced her creativity by expanding her understanding of art.

Tseng has curated numerous exhibitions and published many books and catalogues introducing Chinese art to the West. She usually focuses on Chinese literati painting, calligraphy and folk art.

Among her best known English publications are "Some Contemporary Elements in Chinese Classical Pictorial Art," "Chinese Calligraphy," "Wenjen Hua (Literati Paintings)," "Chinese Folk Art," and, most remarkably, "A History of Chinese Calligraphy."

In Tseng's most recent paintings, she mixes the influence of Chinese art with modern Western art, with influences from Max Ernst, Paul Klee and Josef Albers.

The colours and images interwoven into her works create a lyrical flavour that goes beyond her earlier dsui hua and Western abstract painting to an entirely new spiritual territory.

"Taking as her starting point the classical ideals of Chinese landscape painting and its intellectualization of form, Tseng has explored the wealth of modern Western art movements," wrote American art critic Melissa Thompson.

"She has experienced in media styles far removed from the Chinese tradition and yet always, ultimately, leading back to it," Thompson said.

Date: 03/13/2000
Author: YANG YINGSHI, China Daily staff
Copyright? by China Daily

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