The China Weekly Review, January 18, 1930
Advice to Anna May Wong
Yan-Phou Lee is the author of When I Was a Boy in China (1887).
(Next post on Monday: Bruce Lee)
Showing posts with label China Weekly Review. Show all posts
Showing posts with label China Weekly Review. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 22, 2023
Wednesday, November 15, 2023
Mei Lan-Fang in The China Weekly Review
The China Weekly Review, January 11, 1930
Mei Lan-Fang and His Trip to the United States
Kwan Tak-hing in America, 1932–1934 and 1937–1939
Chinese Theater, New York City, 1909
Mei Lan-fang in This Week in Chicago
Mei Lan-fang in The San Franciscan
(Next post on Wednesday: Advice to Anna May Wong from Yan-Phou Lee)
Friday, April 13, 2018
Paul Fung, Soo Yong, Anna Chang, Yun Gee and Willie Fung in The China Weekly Review
October 4, 1930
A Chinese Reader at Large in Yankeeland
By Art Yun
If one didn’t read the newspapers China would be a very pleasant place.—William F. MeDermott in Cleveland Plain Dealer
What a pity that the first trade struggle should have centered around opium. Not that the white man introduced it into the country.—Alice Tisdale Hobart in “Pidgin Cargo.”
With all the talk about opium, it ought to be generally know that opium was not indigenous to China but was introduced to the country from abroad. The Encyclopedia Brittanica is authority for the statement that opium was introduced to China in the thirteenth century. “Pidgin Cargo” was widely hailed by reviewers in America, and Mrs. Hobart, lauded as a new voice of China, has been writing “sensational” features for the Sunday Springfield Union.
With shuddering fear of the communist domination of the Yangtze valley and the five war fronts, China today is in THE WORST SITUATION SINCE THE OVERTHROW OF THE MANCHU DYNASTY.—Hallett Abend in St. Louis Globe-Democrat.
Reporting in China is done in superlatives. Every passing event is hailed as the worst in history. As that is impossible the reader’s faith in the accuracy of Chinese news is constantly being shaken, and he tends to label them all, as the New York World says, “mah-jonng tales.” This condition is brought about by the peculiar credo of the foreign correspondent working in China. The credo is:
That every civil war in China is the worst since the downfall of the Manchu dynasty.
That stories which do not concern famine, war, and banditry are not worth cabling.
That the communist scare angle must be worked in wherever possible so as to make the headlines.
That if a foreigner shoots a Chinese it is not news, but if a Chinese shoots a foreigner it is worth columns of front page space.
That the missionaries are headlines only when they are kidnapped, or their mission burned, seized or looted.
That Japanese news dispatches are accurate and reliable, and, therefore, worth cabling.
That it is safe to say foreign lives are endangered in every looting of a town.
The Chinese, for example, are in many ways a wonderful people. They are hard-working, temperate, likeable, intelligent, and much more besides. But—the Chinese are different! They are no different from us in blood, culture, ideals and general outlook on life that they cannot be assimilated, and we know that if they come to us in vast numbers they would either destroy us or hopelessly mongrelize us. Therefore, no matter how intelligent, or industrious, or everything else they may be, we do not want them and we will not have them.—Lothrop Stoddard in “Reforging America.”
Stoddard is a Harvard Ph. D., and that helps him get away with lots of his inaccuracies. This particular idea has long been foisted on an unsuspecting American public. It’s a fallacy so long unchallenged that it passes for gospel truth.
But move about Chinatown, and see how assimilable Chinese are. Indeed, they are being over-assimilated, absorbing both America’s virtues as well as her vices. They are as public-minded as any other racial group in America. The Chinese Float at Portland’s annual Rose Festival has often won first prizes. Chinese have subscribed for Liberty Loans; they have given freely to Community Funds; they have sent their sons to the war. There’s even a ticker tape in Chinatown.
A Chinese lad won the American Legion essay contest. A Chinese girl has won the California spelling-bee contest. Paul Fung draws the daily American flapper comic, “Gus and Gussie,” and “Dumb Dora” which are widely syndicated by Hearst. The Chinese manager of Frisco’s Chinatown is a Shriner. Miss Soo Young [sic], Mei Lan-fang’s prologist in America, has served on Broadway: with Katherine Cornell in “The Latter;” with Arthur Byron in “South of Siam;” with Lester Lornigan in “The House Unguarded.” Anna Chang, Chinatown girl who made good in vaudeville, is anything but Chinese except in skin.
Will McDermott, dramatic critic, writes on the subject in the Cleveland Plain Dealer, following attendance at a party given by Chinese stage folks. He says in part:
The differences were surprisingly slight. They consisted almost exclusively of differences in clothes and complexions. Anyone who had a lingering doubt of the efficacy of the American melting pot to mold strange metal into the American image would have been won over to the affirmative by this social gathering of Chinese actors. Their mode of amusement, their talk, their expression of taste, item by item were the same as that of American mimes under similar occasions. They wore Chinese garb self-consciously as a concession to the prejudices of an Occidental audience. Tailored coats and Parisian hats , by the way of Chicago to Cleveland, were raiment in which they felt at home. The melting pot has done a superb job in amalgamating them into an exact image of their American brothers and sisters.
A much bruited fallacy is the value of learned men as molders of public opinion. The fallacy is all the more glaring in the case of the United States. Who runs America? Do you think experts, scholars, and professors have a “say?”
James W. Girard’s recent list of 59 American rulers did not include a single name from the intellectual hierarchy. To him, America is run by bankers, industrialists, and newspaper publishers. That may be a good thing for China.
Take, for instance, that Williamstown Institute of Politics where professors and their friends hold summer pow-wow. George H. Blakeslee of Clark University, who built a name on Far Eastern problems, came out for military intervention in China by the rest of the world. This Ph. D. questioned whether “any state, in our small independent world, had the right to enjoy the luxury of decade-long political disorganization.” On the other hand, a banker, Jerome D. Greene, rejected any such idea that China’s problems might be solved by intervention, economic or otherwise.
Dr. Blakeslee’s idea appears original among American professors. For China it’s fortunate that professors do not run America, even when they are original.
Unlike England, America is famous for its magazine editors who do not write. Ellery Sedgwick of the Atlantic Monthly is one of the most noted of them. That does not mean that Sedgwick can’t write. Once every four years when a presidential campaign is being waged, he fires a literary blast on behalf of the minority candidate. His picture of Al Smith two years ago was so admirable that papers all over the land copied extracts and Democratic orators thundered its beauties from platforms. Except for this quadrennial outburst, Sedgwick maintains a sphinx-like silence year in and year out.
Japan, however, has succeeded in making him break this tradition. With other editors, he accepted an invitation to tour Japan. Now back in America, he is the first to repay his island-host in words of jade.
American monthly magazines use only about half a dozen articles on the Far East a year; and when the majority of these tell of Japan over the signature of their editors, it’s a real achievement. Sedgwick’s first article, called “Japanese Mystery,” is a lyric statement for modern Japan—its beauty, its laughter, its joy. Lifted outside the realm of publicity by sheer writing, it is, nevertheless, publicity, because inspired and paid for by an interested party.
This boosting affects China indirectly. There’s nice words on one side and virtual silence on the other. It strengthens the current notion that Japan is the tower of Oriental civilization, while the truth is that all that is finest in Japan—in art and literature—came originally from China.
It’s not an easy matter to put over a Chinese trade boost in an American business magazine. For one reason, the editors are skeptical. For another, Uncle Sam, through the Department of Commerce, practically monopolizes this kind of export boosting.
But once in a while a general magazine will use such an article if the proper elements are well mixed. Raymond Fuller has done that in the North American Review in a piece called, “Seraglios in Asia.” Here’s the trick:
First, Fuller presents a bogey. The Soviet bogey has always worked, so why not in the trade field. If American business don’t look out the Soviets will capture the China market. They can undersell the world; they have industrial brains; they have natural resources; their worker morale is high. So look out, America!
Second, Fuller presents color. Look at China: starving millions; no railroads; primitive methods; incredible backwardness. Though missionaries have overworked the picture, it’s always new; it gets attention. Indeed, it is the gravy of every article on China in an American magazine.
Third, Fuller, like an expert showman, winds up with a brilliant verbal finish. His horn emits such sounds as “Two railroads east and west through China will sell more products than any elevated motor drive from New York to Boston,” “A power plant at Nanking would yield future dividends to rival Muscle Shoals.”
There is nothing new here that the Department of Commerce has not said time and time again. The article shows that the old formula still clicks with American editors: a snappy title, Soviet bogey, rag-ridden millions, and a brilliant verbal finish.
Thomas Steep, the N. Y. Herald-Tribune chap who wrote “Chinese Fantastics” a few years ago, returns to his old love of capturing facets of Chinese life. The August issue of Japan prints his “Shanghai Silhouettes.”
I know of nothing as charming to read as these innocuous bits of observation. There’s a book—the Nightside of Japan by a Japanese—which is found in the majority of public libraries in America. It’s done in a style resembling broken porcelain. I wonder why no Chinese has ever written in like fashion of China. A book of that kind is not only timeless, but has wide appeal.
There’s nothing that Steep sees which you don’t. For example, here’s a bit of his observation:
Opposite the Palace Hotel near the Bund, a Chinese sign painter with palette in hand is standing on a bamboo ladder. The ladder leans against a signboard upon which the Chinese is painting for an American automobile concern a scene along the Hudson River. The painter has never been away from the Orient and probably has never ridden in an automobile, yet he paints realistically a landscape in a country he has never seen and accurately the characters of a language he does not understand.
Satire, wit, irony, sentiment are in all of Steep’s snatches. Chinese students of English should try this sort of writing. The woods are full of Chinese writing on politics, economics, government—stuff that’s born today and forgotten tomorrow. The other kind may be harder, but it’s more durable. One of the world’s best journalists, the late C.E. Montague, is known abroad not for his brilliant work on the Manchester Guardian, but for his writings on the lighter aspects of life.
Calvin Coolidge, who once bossed the White House and lately turned columnist, is trying humor in his daily pieces……Naomi Winter, night club dancer, rates as the first oriental girl without a country. Of Japanese extraction, her birth in Montreal made her a Canadian citizen; she lost her Canadian citizenship by marrying an American and then lost her American citizensihp [sic] by divorcing him. She never had any citizenship in Japan because she wasn’t born there……H.L. Mencken, the 50-year-old mocker of matrimony, went and got married and stood lots of razzing by wits, nearwits and nitwits……Heywood Broun accepted the Socialist nomination without consulting his editor and still holds his job on the N.Y. Telegram……Willie Fung, Chinese actor, graduate of the Chinese stage in San Francisco, plays the part of a South Sea store-keeper in the movie, Sea-God……Cigarettes are becoming so cheap that a lot of stylish girls may stop smoking them……So popular has been the demand for lurid, blood-thirsty tales of the Orient, despite goodwill boosters that a new all-fiction pulp paper magazine has been started under the name, FAR EAST ADVENTURES……Yun Gee, new Chinese artist in New York, plans to start first Chinese Art School there……K.K. Kawakami writing about Japan getting quota rights, literally says, “I am from Missouri. Show me!”
Chicago, Ill, September, 15, 1930.
(Next post on Friday: Yolk Magazine, 1994–2003)
A Chinese Reader at Large in Yankeeland
By Art Yun
If one didn’t read the newspapers China would be a very pleasant place.—William F. MeDermott in Cleveland Plain Dealer
Opium Cargoes
What a pity that the first trade struggle should have centered around opium. Not that the white man introduced it into the country.—Alice Tisdale Hobart in “Pidgin Cargo.”
With all the talk about opium, it ought to be generally know that opium was not indigenous to China but was introduced to the country from abroad. The Encyclopedia Brittanica is authority for the statement that opium was introduced to China in the thirteenth century. “Pidgin Cargo” was widely hailed by reviewers in America, and Mrs. Hobart, lauded as a new voice of China, has been writing “sensational” features for the Sunday Springfield Union.
Credo of the Foreign Correspondent in China
With shuddering fear of the communist domination of the Yangtze valley and the five war fronts, China today is in THE WORST SITUATION SINCE THE OVERTHROW OF THE MANCHU DYNASTY.—Hallett Abend in St. Louis Globe-Democrat.
Reporting in China is done in superlatives. Every passing event is hailed as the worst in history. As that is impossible the reader’s faith in the accuracy of Chinese news is constantly being shaken, and he tends to label them all, as the New York World says, “mah-jonng tales.” This condition is brought about by the peculiar credo of the foreign correspondent working in China. The credo is:
That every civil war in China is the worst since the downfall of the Manchu dynasty.
That stories which do not concern famine, war, and banditry are not worth cabling.
That the communist scare angle must be worked in wherever possible so as to make the headlines.
That if a foreigner shoots a Chinese it is not news, but if a Chinese shoots a foreigner it is worth columns of front page space.
That the missionaries are headlines only when they are kidnapped, or their mission burned, seized or looted.
That Japanese news dispatches are accurate and reliable, and, therefore, worth cabling.
That it is safe to say foreign lives are endangered in every looting of a town.
Chinese in the United States
The Chinese, for example, are in many ways a wonderful people. They are hard-working, temperate, likeable, intelligent, and much more besides. But—the Chinese are different! They are no different from us in blood, culture, ideals and general outlook on life that they cannot be assimilated, and we know that if they come to us in vast numbers they would either destroy us or hopelessly mongrelize us. Therefore, no matter how intelligent, or industrious, or everything else they may be, we do not want them and we will not have them.—Lothrop Stoddard in “Reforging America.”
Stoddard is a Harvard Ph. D., and that helps him get away with lots of his inaccuracies. This particular idea has long been foisted on an unsuspecting American public. It’s a fallacy so long unchallenged that it passes for gospel truth.
But move about Chinatown, and see how assimilable Chinese are. Indeed, they are being over-assimilated, absorbing both America’s virtues as well as her vices. They are as public-minded as any other racial group in America. The Chinese Float at Portland’s annual Rose Festival has often won first prizes. Chinese have subscribed for Liberty Loans; they have given freely to Community Funds; they have sent their sons to the war. There’s even a ticker tape in Chinatown.
A Chinese lad won the American Legion essay contest. A Chinese girl has won the California spelling-bee contest. Paul Fung draws the daily American flapper comic, “Gus and Gussie,” and “Dumb Dora” which are widely syndicated by Hearst. The Chinese manager of Frisco’s Chinatown is a Shriner. Miss Soo Young [sic], Mei Lan-fang’s prologist in America, has served on Broadway: with Katherine Cornell in “The Latter;” with Arthur Byron in “South of Siam;” with Lester Lornigan in “The House Unguarded.” Anna Chang, Chinatown girl who made good in vaudeville, is anything but Chinese except in skin.
Will McDermott, dramatic critic, writes on the subject in the Cleveland Plain Dealer, following attendance at a party given by Chinese stage folks. He says in part:
The differences were surprisingly slight. They consisted almost exclusively of differences in clothes and complexions. Anyone who had a lingering doubt of the efficacy of the American melting pot to mold strange metal into the American image would have been won over to the affirmative by this social gathering of Chinese actors. Their mode of amusement, their talk, their expression of taste, item by item were the same as that of American mimes under similar occasions. They wore Chinese garb self-consciously as a concession to the prejudices of an Occidental audience. Tailored coats and Parisian hats , by the way of Chicago to Cleveland, were raiment in which they felt at home. The melting pot has done a superb job in amalgamating them into an exact image of their American brothers and sisters.
Originality at Williamstown
A much bruited fallacy is the value of learned men as molders of public opinion. The fallacy is all the more glaring in the case of the United States. Who runs America? Do you think experts, scholars, and professors have a “say?”
James W. Girard’s recent list of 59 American rulers did not include a single name from the intellectual hierarchy. To him, America is run by bankers, industrialists, and newspaper publishers. That may be a good thing for China.
Take, for instance, that Williamstown Institute of Politics where professors and their friends hold summer pow-wow. George H. Blakeslee of Clark University, who built a name on Far Eastern problems, came out for military intervention in China by the rest of the world. This Ph. D. questioned whether “any state, in our small independent world, had the right to enjoy the luxury of decade-long political disorganization.” On the other hand, a banker, Jerome D. Greene, rejected any such idea that China’s problems might be solved by intervention, economic or otherwise.
Dr. Blakeslee’s idea appears original among American professors. For China it’s fortunate that professors do not run America, even when they are original.
An Editor’s Thanks to Nippon
Unlike England, America is famous for its magazine editors who do not write. Ellery Sedgwick of the Atlantic Monthly is one of the most noted of them. That does not mean that Sedgwick can’t write. Once every four years when a presidential campaign is being waged, he fires a literary blast on behalf of the minority candidate. His picture of Al Smith two years ago was so admirable that papers all over the land copied extracts and Democratic orators thundered its beauties from platforms. Except for this quadrennial outburst, Sedgwick maintains a sphinx-like silence year in and year out.
Japan, however, has succeeded in making him break this tradition. With other editors, he accepted an invitation to tour Japan. Now back in America, he is the first to repay his island-host in words of jade.
American monthly magazines use only about half a dozen articles on the Far East a year; and when the majority of these tell of Japan over the signature of their editors, it’s a real achievement. Sedgwick’s first article, called “Japanese Mystery,” is a lyric statement for modern Japan—its beauty, its laughter, its joy. Lifted outside the realm of publicity by sheer writing, it is, nevertheless, publicity, because inspired and paid for by an interested party.
This boosting affects China indirectly. There’s nice words on one side and virtual silence on the other. It strengthens the current notion that Japan is the tower of Oriental civilization, while the truth is that all that is finest in Japan—in art and literature—came originally from China.
A Formula for Writers
It’s not an easy matter to put over a Chinese trade boost in an American business magazine. For one reason, the editors are skeptical. For another, Uncle Sam, through the Department of Commerce, practically monopolizes this kind of export boosting.
But once in a while a general magazine will use such an article if the proper elements are well mixed. Raymond Fuller has done that in the North American Review in a piece called, “Seraglios in Asia.” Here’s the trick:
First, Fuller presents a bogey. The Soviet bogey has always worked, so why not in the trade field. If American business don’t look out the Soviets will capture the China market. They can undersell the world; they have industrial brains; they have natural resources; their worker morale is high. So look out, America!
Second, Fuller presents color. Look at China: starving millions; no railroads; primitive methods; incredible backwardness. Though missionaries have overworked the picture, it’s always new; it gets attention. Indeed, it is the gravy of every article on China in an American magazine.
Third, Fuller, like an expert showman, winds up with a brilliant verbal finish. His horn emits such sounds as “Two railroads east and west through China will sell more products than any elevated motor drive from New York to Boston,” “A power plant at Nanking would yield future dividends to rival Muscle Shoals.”
There is nothing new here that the Department of Commerce has not said time and time again. The article shows that the old formula still clicks with American editors: a snappy title, Soviet bogey, rag-ridden millions, and a brilliant verbal finish.
More Chinese Fantastics
Thomas Steep, the N. Y. Herald-Tribune chap who wrote “Chinese Fantastics” a few years ago, returns to his old love of capturing facets of Chinese life. The August issue of Japan prints his “Shanghai Silhouettes.”
I know of nothing as charming to read as these innocuous bits of observation. There’s a book—the Nightside of Japan by a Japanese—which is found in the majority of public libraries in America. It’s done in a style resembling broken porcelain. I wonder why no Chinese has ever written in like fashion of China. A book of that kind is not only timeless, but has wide appeal.
There’s nothing that Steep sees which you don’t. For example, here’s a bit of his observation:
Opposite the Palace Hotel near the Bund, a Chinese sign painter with palette in hand is standing on a bamboo ladder. The ladder leans against a signboard upon which the Chinese is painting for an American automobile concern a scene along the Hudson River. The painter has never been away from the Orient and probably has never ridden in an automobile, yet he paints realistically a landscape in a country he has never seen and accurately the characters of a language he does not understand.
Satire, wit, irony, sentiment are in all of Steep’s snatches. Chinese students of English should try this sort of writing. The woods are full of Chinese writing on politics, economics, government—stuff that’s born today and forgotten tomorrow. The other kind may be harder, but it’s more durable. One of the world’s best journalists, the late C.E. Montague, is known abroad not for his brilliant work on the Manchester Guardian, but for his writings on the lighter aspects of life.
This Yankeetown of Ours
Calvin Coolidge, who once bossed the White House and lately turned columnist, is trying humor in his daily pieces……Naomi Winter, night club dancer, rates as the first oriental girl without a country. Of Japanese extraction, her birth in Montreal made her a Canadian citizen; she lost her Canadian citizenship by marrying an American and then lost her American citizensihp [sic] by divorcing him. She never had any citizenship in Japan because she wasn’t born there……H.L. Mencken, the 50-year-old mocker of matrimony, went and got married and stood lots of razzing by wits, nearwits and nitwits……Heywood Broun accepted the Socialist nomination without consulting his editor and still holds his job on the N.Y. Telegram……Willie Fung, Chinese actor, graduate of the Chinese stage in San Francisco, plays the part of a South Sea store-keeper in the movie, Sea-God……Cigarettes are becoming so cheap that a lot of stylish girls may stop smoking them……So popular has been the demand for lurid, blood-thirsty tales of the Orient, despite goodwill boosters that a new all-fiction pulp paper magazine has been started under the name, FAR EAST ADVENTURES……Yun Gee, new Chinese artist in New York, plans to start first Chinese Art School there……K.K. Kawakami writing about Japan getting quota rights, literally says, “I am from Missouri. Show me!”
Chicago, Ill, September, 15, 1930.
(Next post on Friday: Yolk Magazine, 1994–2003)
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
Yun Gee in Who’s Who in China
Who’s Who in China
Biographies of Chinese Leaders
Fifth Edition
The China Weekly Review, 1936
page 68, column 3
(click images to enlarge)
Chu Yun-gee (Chu Yuan-chi)
Chu Yun-gee, artist; born at Canton, Kwangtung, Feb. 22, 1905; studied Chinese classics and literature in his native village and at age of 13, he wrote the essay “The Morality of the Chinese in the Times of the Three Kingdoms,” in which he expressed radical ideas resulting in serious difference of opinion between him and the school authorities and his leaving the institution; it was at this time that he made his first attempt to paint and chose as his first subject “Kwan Yu,” the famous Chinese warrior-saint in the Three Kingdoms; from that time on, his sole desire was to become a painter and at age of 14 (1921), he went to America, entering the California Art School where he made phenomenal progress and met the well-known modern painter, Otis Oldfield; during the term of his studies, he accumulated some 200 canvasses, but to his awakened spirit, they seemed to be the works of a man who had long been lost in blindness and symbols of his one-time slavishness to the academic and he destroyed them in a bonfire with a prayer, pledging to forget and abandon the academic and to devote his efforts to the vital living art; under the stimulation of Otis Oldfield, he organized an exhibition at the Modern Artists Gallery, San Francisco, which brought his unique talent to public notice and he became well-known as one of the modern painters of that city; after the exhibition, he organised “The Chinese Revolutionary Painters’ Club” there; finding that San Francisco no longer offered him a chance for growth, he went to Paris at age of 20 in the hope of learning more of the painting of the West which he could fuse with that of the East; after his arrival at Paris, he installed himself in a studio in the Latin Quarter and his work received the highest praise in many French art journals; in Dec. 1927, he held his first European exhibition at the Carmine Galleries which was an unparalleled success and during which, he sold most of his paintings, three of which were purchased by the Princess Lucien Murat; shortly after that he held another exhibition at the Salon des Independants and his exhibit, “Confucius,” was declared to be the finest painting done by a Chinese artist since the days of the Sung Dynasty; at about this time, he became acquainted with Raymond Duncan who expressed great admiration for his art and the famous connoisseur, Paul Guillame also extolled him as one of the most charming artists; after having stayed in Paris for three years with a half-year's sojourn in Spain, he returned to America in 1930 at the age of 23; shortly after his arrival in San Francisco, he held an exhibition at the Balzac Galleries and is now still in America doing research work in art; his rise in the art world has been meteoric and in spite of his youth, he has already become internationally known as one of the most outstanding painters of today.
The 1936 book is available at the Internet Archive. The 1931 Who’s Who in China has the above entry (plus a few words) which was based on the biography in the China Weekly Review, February 7, 1931:
Yun Gee, artist; born at Canton, Kwangtung, Feb. 22 1905; son of Mr. Quong On Chue, who once traded in America; studied Chinese classics and literature in his native village; at the age of 13, he wrote the essay “Morality of the Chinese in the Times of the Three Kingdoms”, in which he expressed radical ideas and thereby caused a serious difference of opinion between him and the school authorities, finally resulting in his leaving the institution; it was at this time that he made his first attempt to paint and chose as his first subject “Kwan Yu” the famous Chinese warrior-saint in the Three Kingdoms; from that time on, his sole desire was to become a painter and at age of 14 (1921), he went to America, entering the Californian Art School where he made phenomenal progress and met the well-known modern painter, Otis Oldfield; during the term of his studies, he had accumulated some 200 canvasses, but to his awakened spirit, they seemed to be the works of a man who had long been lost in blindness and symbols of his one time slavery to the academic and he destroyed them in a bonfire with a prayer, pledging to forget and abandon the academic and to devote his efforts in future to the vital living art; under the stimulation of Otis Oldfield, he organized an exhibition at the Modern Artists Gallery, San Francisco, which brought out his unique talent to the public notice and he became well-known as one of the outstanding modern-painters of that city; after the exhibition, he organised “The Chinese Revolutionary Painters’ Club” under the sponsership [sic] of Fain-Chaing and Dr. Yung, two, well-konwn [sic] residents in San Francisco; shortly after this, he held another exhibition, of his works and those of his young disciples in Frisco Chinatown which also won him many admirers; finding that San Francisco no longer offered him a chance for growth, he went to Paris at age of 20 in the hope to learn more of the painting of the West which he could fuse with that of the East; after his arrival at Paris, he installed himself in a studio in the Latin Quarter and his work received the highest praise in many French art journals; in Dec. 1927, he held his first European exhibition at the Carmine Galleries which was an unparalleled success and during which, he sold most of his paintings, three of which were purchased by the Princess Lucien Murat who became his great admirer and patroness; shortly after that he held another exhibition at the Salon Des Independants and his exhibit, “Confucious [sic],” was declared to be the finest painting done by a Chinese artist since the days of the Sung Dynasty some seven centuries ago; it was about, this time, he became acquainted with Raymond Duncan who expressed great admiration of his art and the Famous connoissur [sic], Paul Guillame also extolled him as one of the most charming artists; after having stayed in Paris for three years with a half-year’s sojourn in Spain, he returned to America in 1930 at the age of 23. Again in San Francisco, he held an exhibition at the Balzac Galleries and is now contemplating to hold another exhibition in which he will present to American public all of his works now on their way from Paris; Yun Gee’s rise in the art world has been meteoric and in spite of his youth, he has already become internationally known as one of the most outstanding painters of today.
Standard Union
(Brooklyn, New York)
November 22, 1931
.jpg)
Regarding Yun’s birth year, Joyce Brodsky in her book, Experiences of Passage: The Paintings of Yun Gee and Li-lan (2008), said: “Yun Gee (Gee Wing Yun was his Chinese name) was born in Gee Village (now called Chu Village), Yanglu Town, Kaiping County, Guangdong Province, China, on February 22, 1906, the second son of Quong On Chu and Wong See….”
The China Weekly Review also published Arthur A. Young’s article, “Yun Gee, Chinese Interpreter of East to West”, in its October 18, 1930 issue. His piece was printed in Yun Gee: Poetry, Writings, Art, Memories (2003).
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(Tomorrow: Yun Gee in Life Magazine)
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