Taiwan ink painter elected to American Academy

2016/10/26

Ink painter Liu Kuo-sung, chair professor in the Department of Fine Arts at National Taiwan Normal University in Taipei City, was recently inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, marking the first time a Republic of China (Taiwan) arts scholar has been elected to the prestigious institution.

Liu was among 21 foreign honorary members inducted into the American Academy at a ceremony Oct. 8 at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He is the first painter from a Mandarin-speaking society to join the organization.

Known for his efforts to revolutionize traditional Chinese ink painting, Liu has experimented over the past decades with a variety of tools, including Western brushes and paint sprayers. He has also incorporated techniques from such diverse art forms as calligraphy, paper cutting and photography, resulting in works described as modern Chinese ink painting that break away from conventional arrangements and merge Chinese and Western influences.

Since graduating from NTNU in 1951, Liu has enjoyed a long and distinguished career as an educator, teaching at Tainan National University of the Arts in southern Taiwan’s Tainan City, the Chinese University of Hong Kong and several U.S. universities. His works have been collected by more than 80 art institutions around the world, including the British Museum in London.

Founded in 1780, the American Academy is one of the oldest and most celebrated honorary societies in the world as well as a leading policy research center. The institution comprises some 4,900 fellows and 600 foreign honorary members, among them Taiwan’s Lee Yuan-tseh, winner of the 1986 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Source: Taiwan Today (http://taiwantoday.tw/ct.asp?xItem=248964&ctNode=2194&mp=9)