Taiwanese calligrapher (born 1942)
Tong Yang-tze (born 1942), also known as Grace Tong, is a Taiwanese artist. She is one of Taiwan’s foremost calligraphers. She is known for creating very large works in a very small studio.[1]
Personal life and career
Tong was born in 1942 in Shanghai[2] and began practicing art at an early age.[3] Her study of calligraphy began when she was eight.[4]
She received a fine arts degree from National Taiwan Normal University before further visual arts education in the United States at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst where she received a M.F.A in oil painting and ceramics.[2] After studying in America she returned to Taiwan and began to take an experimental approach which fused Western theories of painting with the traditional lines and brushstrokes of Chinese calligraphy.[5] From 1990 to 2000 her calligraphy grew increasingly expressive with a lot of influence from traditional painting. Since the late 1990s she has produced a number of works on a grand scale.[3] Her work pushes the boundaries of traditional Chinese calligraphy as art.[6]
She is the 2020 Wong Chai Lok Calligraphy Fellow at Cornell University.[5]
She has a daughter who works as a jewelry designer.[6]
Exhibitions
In 1997 “The Living Brush” Four Masters along with C.C. Wang, Wang Fang Yu, and Tseng Yuho at the Pacific Heritage Museum in San Francisco.[2]
In 1998 at the Michael Goedhuis Gallery in London.[2]
In 2000 at the Mountain Art Museum in Kaohsiung, the National Central University Art Centre in Chung-Li, and the National Museum of History in Taipei.[2]
In 2001 at the City University of Hong Kong, the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Goedhuis Contemporary in London, and Goedhuis Contemporary at Sotheby's in New York.[2]
In 2002 at Da-Ai Television in Taipei.[2]
In 2003 at the National Theater Taipei, the Cultural Center in Taichung, and the County Cultural Bureau in Hsinchu.[2]
In 2004 at Goedhuis Contemporary in New York, Goedhuis Contemporary at The Annex in New York, and the Taipei Fine Arts Museum.[2]
In 2005 at Goedhuis Contemporary in New York.[2]
In 2006 and 2008 at Eslite Vision Gallery in Taipei.[2]
In 2009 at the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, and Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei.[2]
In 2020 her piece Immortal at the River was exhibited at Cornell's Johnson Museum of Art.[7] Immortal at the River is a 54-meter-long cursive-script calligraphy of the poem by the same name by Yang Shen which prefaces the Romance of the Three Kingdoms. It was created in 2003.[5]
She was the subject of Wang Yen-ni's documentary Solitary Joy.[6]
See also
References