Ashmolean Eastern Art Online, Yousef Jameel Centre for Islamic and Asian Art

Now a renowned painter, graphic artist, and wood-engraver, Huang Yongyu (born 1924) studied with Lin Fengmian (1900-1991) in Chongqing during the Second World War (1939-1945). In 1948 he was art editor of Dagongbao in Hong Kong, then in 1953 returned to China where he taught graphic art at the Central Academy. In 1989 he moved to Hong Kong again but in the late 1990s returned to live in the home he built outside Beijing. Michael Sullivan (1916-2013) and Huang met for the first time in 1980. This painting, however, was given by the artist to Khoan (1919-2003) and Michael in the winter of 1976 or 1977, sent to Oxford through a friend. The painting uses Huang’s favorite medium, Chinese ink and strong body color on heavy paper. The inscription reads ‘My hair has turned white. [Looking at] Lakes and rivers in spring, I think of the Jiangnan region in the south. At the end of a binchen year, painted by Huang Yongyu in Jingxin Lane in Beijing.'