Fong Chung-Ray

Fong Chung-Ray (born 1933) is a Chinese artist regarded as one of the pioneers of abstraction in Chinese painting.

Early life
At the age of 14, Fong Chung-Ray was obliged to leave his family and go into exile, due to the Chinese Civil War when he enlisted as a lieutenant in the navy. As the army moved to different locations and various political events occurred, he settled in Taiwan in 1949.

Artistic practice
Fong Chung-Ray's passion for art and inquiring mind led him to take an interest in Western abstract art, which he discovered through reading journals and books, available in the American Library in Taipei. In 1957, he founded the Four Seas Artists Association with his friend, Hu Chi-Chung. During this period, he experimented with abstraction and used new Western techniques, such as painting with oil on canvas. In 1961, he became a member of the Wuyue Group (Fifth Moon Group) and participated in many exhibitions. in 1963, on the advice of Liu Guosong, a painter and the Group’s theorist, he abandoned painting with oil on canvas and returned to the traditional Chinese technique of ink painting. Fong Chung-Ray then invented a brush made from palm tree fibres, which added a highly personal touch and a rougher quality to his sweeps of colour. The abstract ink works from this period, with their blend of subtle colouring, dynamic strokes, wet sweeps of colour, and poetry, were rooted directly in the tradition of the Chinese master landscape painters.

In 1971, he was awarded a Rockefeller Foundation grant that enabled him to travel to Europe and the united States. When he settled in San Francisco in 1975, he began to work with acrylic paint. Initially, his work focused on abstract landscapes, but he gradually moved away from this movement when he turned to Buddhist spirituality. This fresh source of inspiration resulted in a more abstract approach, related to temporality, which he studied in the sacred texts.

The effects of time on materials and an exploration of the technique of collages and imprints have become fundamental aspects of his artistic approach. By going beyond the formal representation of nature, Fong Chung-Ray has revived the spiritual essence that emanates from the paintings by the great old masters and invites the viewer to contemplate.

Selected solo exhibitions

 * 2015 Galerie Du Monde, RAS de Hong Kong, Chine
 * 2015 Art Taipei, Modern Art Gallery, Taipei, Taiwan
 * 2014 Modern Art Gallery, Taichung, Taiwan
 * 2011 Modern Art Gallery, Taichung, Taiwan
 * 2008 Modern Art Gallery, Taichung, Taïwan
 * 2004 Galerie Triangle, San Francisco, Californie, États-Unis
 * 1992 Galerie Allrich, San Francisco, Californie, États-Unis
 * 1990 Galerie d’art moderne de Carmel, Carmel, Californie, États-Unis
 * 1987 Galeries Landell, Carmel, Californie, États-Unis
 * 1984/86 Galerie M. M. Shinno, Los Angeles, Californie, États-Unis
 * 1983 Galerie M. M. Shinno, Los Angeles, Californie, États-Unis Galerie Nouveau Monde, Carmel, Californie, États-Unis
 * 1982 Galerie Triangle, San Francisco, Californie, États-Unis
 * 1979 Galerie M. M. Shinno, Los Angeles, Californie, États-Unis
 * 1978 Galerie Triangle, San Francisco, Californie, États-Unis
 * 1975 Galerie du siège mondial de la Banque d’Amérique, San Francisco, Californie, États-Unis Commission des Beaux-Arts, Scottsdale, Arizona, États-Unis
 * 1974 Musée national d’histoire, Taipei, Taïwan
 * 1973 Galerie Marianne Schreiber, Munich, Allemagne
 * 1972 Musée d'art de San Diego, San Diego, Californie, États-Unis Galerie Lee Nordness, New York, États-Unis  Galerie Downtown, Honolulu, Hawaii, États-Unis
 * 1968 Galerie Magic Touch, Taipei, Taïwan
 * 1967 Galerie Hai-Tien, Taipei, Taïwan
 * 1965 Centre d’art national de Taïwan, Taipei, Taïwan

Major public collections

 * Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taipei, Taiwan
 * National Gallery of Art and Museum of History, Taipei, Taiwan
 * National Taiwan Arts Center, Taipei, Taiwan
 * M.H. De Young Museum, San Francisco, United States
 * The Denver Art Museum, Denver, Colorado, United States
 * San Diego Museum of Fine Arts, San Diego, California, United States
 * National Taiwan Museum of Fine Art, Taichung, Taiwan
 * Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, California, United States
 * Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, Maryland, United States
 * Kaohsiung Art Museum, Kaohsiung, Taiwan
 * Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University, Boston, Massachusetts, United States
 * Guangdong Museum of Art, Guangzhou, China
 * Shenzhen Fine Art Research Institute, Shenzhen, China

Selected group exhibitions

 * Museum of Ixelles, Brussels, Belgium
 * San Francisco State University Gallery, San Francisco, United States
 * Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taipei, Taiwan
 * Dr. Sun Yat San Memorial Hall, Taipei, Taiwan
 * Guangdong Museum of Art, Guangzhou, China
 * Triangle Gallery, San Francisco, United States
 * Gallery On The Rim, San Francisco, United States
 * The Allrich Gallery, San Francisco, United States
 * City Hall, Hong Kong

Catalogues

 * Fong Chung-Ray : A retrospective, Silicon Valley Asian Art Center. 2013. p. 147, (ISBN 978-986-02-8859-9)
 * Lü Peng. A History of Art in 20th-Century China. Somogy, éditions d'art. Paris. 2013, p. 438-469. (ISBN 9782757207000)
 * Michael Sullivan. Art and Artists of Twentieth-Century China. University of California Press. 1996, p. 1984-85. (ISBN 978-0-520-07556-6) . Retrieved 3 July 2012.
 * Julia F.Andrews and Kuiyi Shen. The Art of Modern China. University of California Press, 2012. p. 248-49.
 * Michael Sullivan. Moderne chinese artists, a biographical dictionary. University of California Press. 2006. (ISBN 978-0-520-24449-8)
 * Formless Form : Taiwanese Abstract Art. Taipei Fine Arts Museum. 2012. (ISBN 978-0-615-85504-2)
 * The Modernist Wave. Taiwan Art in the 1950s and 1960s. National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts. 2011. p. 147, (ISBN 978-986-02-8859-9)
 * The Search for the Avant-Garde 1946-69. TFAM Collection Catalogue. Volume II. Taipei Fine Arts Museum. 2011. reprint 2012. p. 308-309. (ISBN 978-986-03-0997-3)
 * Asian traditions/ modern expressions : Asian American Artists and Abstractions, 1945-1970. Edited by Jeffrey Weschler.Harry N. Abrams, Inc., Publishers, in association with the Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. 1997. p. 41. (ISBN 0-8109-1976-1)
 * A Tradition Redefined, Modern and Contemporary Chinese Ink Paintings from the Chu-tsing Li Collection 1950-2000, Edited by Robert D.Mowry, Yale University Press. (ISBN 978-1-891771-47-7)