Chinese American Tag

Kindred Journey 44 – Jeanyee Wong

 

This was really fun for me to research because Jeanyee Wong was a type based artist and I love typography. Jeanyee was born in San Francisco in 1920 to Cantonese parents who then moved to the Bronx in NY when she was a child. She is said to have started drawing on any and everything when she was just 3. She studied Chinese calligraphy at a young age. Then she studied painting and sculpture at The cooper Union  from 1938-1941. There she studied woodcut with Fritz Kredel and calligraphy with George Salter.  
Jeanyee started as an apprentice of Kredel’s and began working on her own in 1941. The bulk of her work work has been in book publishing as she worked for Oxford University Press, Simon & Schuster, Macmillan, Random House, Little Brown, Crown, Viking, Atheneum, Knopf, so many. She created type treatment, calligraphy, design, and illustration for many there. She also worked in advertising, created certificates, business cards, invitations, letter heads, etc. For many years she worked as a teacher at The New School, Pratt, and others I’m sure. 
She is known for her design of the “Seventeen magazine, NY Public library, and Mad Magazine logos and her awards from AIGA and UNICEF. But she was also highly regarded among the Society of Scribes as a generous teacher of students. She worked from her early 20s up until her 80s I believe and her calligraphy and artwork is incredible. Excellent! 
“You’re never perfect. You can always do something more and improve” – Jeanyee Wong (1920-2017)
Sources: JeanyeeWong.blogspot.com ( Alex Jay), Society of Scribes, Librarything.com
Did you catch the last one this month? Its Spie of the TDK, FC, and TMC crew!!

Kindred Journey 39 – Hung Liu

 

Can’t remember where i first heard her name but her work has stuck with me for awhile. I shared this with my wife who was a Mills student and was actually a student of hers. she remembers hung saying to use more paint:)
Hung was born in China in 1948 and has been painting since the 60s. As she was becoming an adult the cultural revolution happened in China. A revolution in my household growing up, but not necessarily seen with happiness for all. Hung described being forced to work in the fields 1965-72. In between she’d sneak in a drawing, photo, or painting here and there. In the late 70s after Mao’s death she got to study in Beijing’s Central Academy of Fine Arts. She was first trained as a muralist and I think thats one of the things that made me gravitate to her work. She tries to bounce to the US, gets into a a San Diego school, waits 4 years for a visa to clear, then in 84 starts her study in the US. She lives and teaches in Texas before coming to the Bay where she gets into the Capp Street Project. 1990 she gets offered a teaching position at Mills College and is still in the town. 

In her career she has exhibited in solo and group shows since 1978. She has done large public artworks and murals like the one in the Oakland airport. She paints big with juicy drips and her style is a mix of realistic portraiture, and some abstraction. And I dig it. Her use of old photos, calligraphy, found objects, etc. I see workers, everyday life, pain, resistance, freedom to travel, freedom to express, immigrants, preserving history and memory, etc. And it feels like she’s just getting started. Check out her work, once you do you get my choice of imagery here.

Sources: Summoning Ghosts, Kqed, SF Moma, Hungliu.com
Did you catch the last piece I did of muralist Priya Handa? Stay tuned for the next piece featuring Aapi artists for 2021.
Update: She just passed away in August of 2021, rest in Peace!
Here’s a drawing I did of Hung many years ago

Kindred Journey 21 – Mary “Butchie” Tom

Mary was born in Phoenix Arizona from Chinese immigrant parents. She came from a family who worked in and owned grocery stores in Arizona as many immigrants owned and worked in stores. Frustrated with the racism she experienced in Phoenix and her choices for work she took a bus to China Town in San Francisco. She first started working as a housekeeper cleaning when she got there and around 1940 she heard about a job opportunity to be a dancer in a Chinese owned nightclub to be opened called “Forbidden City” (the first Chinese owned nightclub) after the city of the same name in Beijing. She started out learning to dance using choreography and became one of many prominent dancers in the Chinese nightlife scene which was visited by all types of people during the start of World War 2. Mary married and moved back to Arizona where she continued to dance; square dancing!


Sources
: Oral history-Chinese history of Arizona, Classic ladies of color

Dig this? Check out this post about Raveena (Aapi) or Rosie Perez (Boricua)

Kindred Journey 19 – Tyrus Wong

Tyrus Wong was born in 1910 in Taishan China. He migrated to United States, specifically Angel Island in the Bay Area between San Francisco and the East Bay. He endured interrogation and detention because of the US policy called the Chinese exclusion act.  After his release and reuniting with his father he moved to Los Angeles. He loved to draw and paint as a child and attended Otis college as a fine artist. From the 1930s until the 1960s Tyrus worked in animation at Disney Animation studios and later at Warner Brothers. While working as in in between animator at Disney his incredible landscape paintings where discovered by Walt Disney and his painting style laid the foundation for the landmark film Bambi. Because of racism his work was not lauded or celebrated by the studios however, and Tyrus did not get his just due until he was in his 70’s and 80s. Through his artistic career he not only painted beautiful landscapes. But he also painted Chinese calligraphy, greeting cards, ceramics, and built kites. Tyrus passed away in December of last year. He is survived by three daughters and two grand children.


Sources:
NY Times, CAAM, CBS Sunday Morning

Dig this? Check out this ptg of AAPI animated characters