Lineage

• Lin Fengmian1900–1991

  Founding principal of the National Academy of Art at Hangzhou, 1928.

• Hu Shanyu1909–1993

  Trained at the École des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1932. Shown at the Salon du Printemps. Professor at the National Academy of Art.

• Wong Sun Mingb. 1946

  Hu Shanyu's only studio disciple. Also studied under Quan Shanshi and Hu Zhenyu.

Wong Sun Ming's family came from Wenchang in Hainan, a county that has been sending its sons overseas for two hundred years. He was born in Singapore in 1946 and returned to China as a child with his mother.

That inheritance decided the first half of his life. In the early 1970s he sat the entrance examination for the art academy and did well. He was failed for having overseas connections. The circumstance that had made him was the circumstance that shut the door.

He emigrated to Hong Kong in 1973 and waited twelve years. In 1985, at thirty-nine, he left his wife, a daughter in her first year of school and a three-month-old son, and went north to Hangzhou to study oil painting at what is now the China Academy of Art.

There he worked under Hu Shanyu, Quan Shanshi and Hu Zhenyu. Hu Shanyu had trained at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1932 and shown at the Salon du Printemps; across a long teaching life he had never taken a disciple into his own studio. He took Wong.

From 1986 Wong published paintings and wrote criticism for Hong Kong's major papers, along with a number of academic essays — a painter who also writes about painting, which is less common than it sounds. He has held solo exhibitions in Hong Kong and shown in group exhibitions elsewhere. His work has passed through auction and is held by public institutions, galleries and private collections.

The lean years came anyway. He once told Quan Shanshi he was thinking of leaving painting altogether. The reply was short: if you change trades, I will not come to see you again.

He has held the brush for forty years since.

Chronology

• 1946Born in Singapore to a family from Wenchang, Hainan; returns to China as a child with his mother.
• 1970sSits the art academy entrance examination and does well; failed for having overseas connections.
• 1973Emigrates to Hong Kong.
• 1985Enters the Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts, now the China Academy of Art, to study oil painting under Hu Shanyu, Quan Shanshi and Hu Zhenyu. Accepted by Hu Shanyu as his only studio disciple.
• 1986Begins publishing paintings and criticism in Hong Kong's major papers, along with academic essays.
• 1992First collected volume of paintings, with a preface by Quan Shanshi.
• 1997Solo exhibition, Hong Kong Cultural Centre.
• 2010Second collected volume of paintings.