Watson Lim in Chicago

The Chinese in Chicago: The First One Hundred Years 1870-1970
Susan Lee Moy
University of Wisconsin, Madison, 1978

...The only museum in Chinatown is the Ling Long Museum located at 2238 S. Wentworth Avenue. The entire building was built in 1930 by the Moy Family Association of Chicago. The museum, however, does not belong to the organization but is leased to its proprietors. The concept of a Chinese museum was developed by several local residents in Chicago. This group of men commissioned Mr. Watson Lim, a famous, competent Chinese artist from Canton, to reproduce China's history in miniature diaramas [sic]. He did the work exclusively by hand in wood….


Thirty-ninth Annual Exhibition by Artists of Chicago and Vicinity
January 31 to March 10, Nineteen Hundred Thirty-five
The Art Institute of Chicago

(click images to enlarge)

PAINTINGS
Watson Lim
119: Street’s Art Seller

(Next post June 28: Larry Jay)

Chinese Artists Club

San Diego Union 

(California) 

July 29, 1929 

Chinese Artists Have Creditable First Exhibition 

Bay City Hangings Show Versatile Work of Orientals in Modernistic Field. 

Four Chinese artists, Sam Wong, C.J. Lee, Howard Louie and Watson Lim, are represented in the first exhibition held by the Chinese Artists’ club this month in the Chinese high school building, on Stockton street, San Francisco.

Paintings, drawings and studies in various mediums are included in the showing of these young artists, all of whom have studied at the California School of Fine Arts.

Wong is represented by 30 canvases besides his drawings and other studies. He uses color in the modern manner, makes a bid for serious consideration with good drawing and freshly conceived design.

Watson Lim’s work shows a strong Oriental cast with little influence from his Occidental training.

Lee contributes a portrait of the commander-in-chief of the Chinese armies, Chiang Kai Shek, which occupies a place of honor, and Louie shows creditable landscapes of the Monterey coast.

(Next post June 22: Watson Lim in Chicago)