LOOKING BACK
By William Shih-Chieh Hung
December 1998 in the San Francisco East Bay area
I am a self-taught painter. I was born in 1928 in Jieyang city–“Home of the poor scholars”—in China’s Guangdong province. I have always been passionate about drawing even since childhood; I would draw with paper and pencil in my hands, and if I didn’t have either then I would draw on the floor. I began to come into contact with Western arts while I was in Junior High at the Jieyang Zhenli Middle School. That was during the Second Sino-Japanese War, and so my beginner’s skills in Western style painting were put to good use, as I drew many Anti-Japanese propaganda promotional posters. I had just finished my second year in high school when we won the war in 1945, but to make ends meet I was forced to move to Guangzhou and eventually Hong Kong. I was married in Guangzhou in 1948, and in 1950 I opened up an advertising company in Hong Kong solely on my own. My business allowed me to practice my skills and greatly enhance my understanding and application of Western painting. Regrettably, I never had an opportunity for me to further my studies at an art institute. I have always understood that there are no short cuts when it comes to arts, and that the heavens reward those who work hard. When I was working as both high school teacher and art director at a “Worker’s Cultural Palace” in the city of Shantou, China in the 1950’s, I saved furiously on both food and clothing so that I could afford books and collections of Western arts and use them to teach myself, to the point where my friends would label me as “The library”. I would devote my utmost to the basic skills of drawing sketches and oil paintings to the point of madness, often forgetting to eat and sleep. My record was drawing seven portrait sketches in one day, providing great satisfaction to my subject. Almost every one of my friends and relatives in the Chiuchow/Shantou area has a quick portrait sketch done by me in their homes. I would even draw sketches for total strangers as long as they were willing to be my subjects. Not only would I draw it for free, I would even offer them cigarettes and tea in return. I was a victim of political suppression in the 1960’s, and when I lost my freedom, I would use my cigarette pack’s paper wrapping and the charcoal pencils that my daughter would conceal in my meals, and secretly drew under the faint, frail gaslight. I ended up amassing a pile of “mini painting” in 9 months’ time. Some newspaper columnists exposed this, writing it in a giddy manner like some fun endeavors, when the fact was during that dark period, the only way to survive and learn was to change something harmful into something beneficial and to struggle to become the owner of Time. On a side note, it must be noted that I learned how to smoke in order to get my palm-sized “drawing paper”. I wasn’t able to quit this very bad habit well until my second year living in the United States.
Drawing was not only detrimental to making a living, it was also a frequent harbinger of troubles. Many of my colleagues were forced to lay down their drawing pencils and brushes for good. Fortunately, I am a firm believer in the eventual passing of anomalies, so my spirits had hardly been hampered by them. 9 out of 10 famous printers lived in poverty, and it was the same for both Eastern and Western artists. Icons such as France’s Jean-Francois Millet (1814-1875) and Holland’s Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675) lived in poverty all their lives, and their paucities were well documented. I consider myself a historical oddity since I had to endure cold and hunger as well as tolerating political abuse. I was constantly “sailing against the current” before I reached 50, so to speak. But the prolonged confrontation with hardship ended up being a good learning experience that helps me to be well prepared for life overseas during the second half of my life.
The “blossoming spring” of my career did not arrive until I immigrated to the United States in 1979. With my spiritual imprisonment released, I have also regained the naturally endowed gift of human dignity. While it certainly wasn’t easy to adapt myself to the environments of a foreign nation, I really had no other choice. Besides, the air of freedom and the vast open spaces cemented my decision to settle down here. A mere five months after I have arrived in the US, I opened Hung’s Art Studio at Oakland, California. Through my studio I was able to come into contact with all walks of life from American society; they include ordinary citizens and White House cabinet members as well as folks of different colors and races. I became friends with many of them as we searched for consensus in art criticism within this multicultural social fabric that defines America, and explore how Eastern and Western culture can be integrated within the realms of paintings, so that individual styles of drawing can be formed and assimilated into the international arts stage. In 1983 I joined the American Portrait Society and in 1985 I was selected as a certified member and received the APSC accolade. The seven members of the appraisal panel, led by Leslie B. Demille, were contemporary American painters of the highest caliber. The society’s president, Robert Hubbell, congratulated me with a personal letter. I have held three solo exhibitions in America and two in China. My works were featured in “The Collected Works of American Portrait Painters”, “The International Contemporary Arts Collection” and “Encyclopedia of American Painters”, and have received generally good reviews in the media. I was greatly encouraged by them and my confidence was boosted considerably.
“Being exposed first, collecting next, becoming expert last” are the usual directions most painters take. How much money a gallery makes is constrained by its customers. That is especially true for portraits as one must first satisfy the subjects being drawn. The political pressure of the past has now been replaced by financial strain; it is the new road block to the freedom of creativity. In 1986 I decided to just close my gallery’s front end operation and pour my whole heart and soul into drawing, gradually concentrating my focus on body arts. Realism and models are the two fundamentals of portrait painting, and the candidness and generosity of the American women provided me with plenty of inspirations for my paintings.
Some have said that I was greatly influenced by the Italian Renaissance painters Leonardo Da Vinci (1452-1519) and Raffaelo Santi (1483-1520), while others said it was the French Classicism painter J.A. Ingres (1780-1867) or the Spaniard Francisco Goya (1746-1828), the pioneer of romanticism painting. I dare not to compare my works on the same level with these masters’ classic opus; it’s just that I honor and respect tradition greatly, therefore it is inevitable that my works would have traces of these illustrious predecessors. Inheriting the spirit of tradition does not equate imitation. The Renaissance paintings emphasized the accuracy and uncanniness of the models, and as a result the artistic effects could be rather lacking. The impressionistic paintings focused on abstractness, but they also have a scientific perspective on such elements like light and color, so artistic impressions were their main emphasis. All the painters that have occupied a place in the history of arts have their own individual distinctiveness that made them master scholars to those that came after them. My professor Chi Ke once said to me that my works encompass both realism and impressionism, which I found to be a fair assessment. I have scrupulously studied many paintings from North America as well as European paintings from the Renaissance to the contemporary, but I was only “learning from” them and not imitating them. I tried hard to retain my own style. Being able to be objective towards history and reality is very beneficial in learning more about yourself. Arts is infinite, so I will forever be a student. All my life, I have been intertwined with arts, so logically I have accumulated some knowledge and experience, and it will be a waste not to utilize both. Painting became my mission self-consciously. Whether my outputs were good or bad, I hope that I have at least contributed to society, even if I might have embarrassed myself in the interim.
Although I kept mentioning myself when I talked about being self-taught, no one can really survive on their own. Successful career choices especially rely on the perfect triptych of timing, location, and human interactions. Teachings by the parents, lessons learned from the teachers, a good marriage and a suitable living environment are all essentials, not one less. My wife Susie Hung graduated from Guangzhou Women’s University in 1947 and left China in 1979. She was a lifelong elementary school teacher and her students are everywhere. Through thick and thin, she has always been standing by my side and supporting my career wholeheartedly. We have three sons and one daughter and now all of us, including our grandchildren, are now well settled in America. As we approach our twilight years and our golden wedding anniversary, I look back to the past, reminiscing on a life that is more simple than glamorous, with hardly anything to brag about. One thing that I find most gratifying is that I still recognize the importance of cherishing my time, to continue to devote myself to the arts, and to live a life that is at peace with the world. “Seventy is not old age anymore”, perhaps the most mature years of my creativity still lie ahead. It’s time to systematically chronicle my past works as I contemplate my future.
WILLIAM S. HUNG
December 1998
Written in the San Francisco East Bay area
