FANG ZHAOLING

Born to a scholarly family in the city of Wuxi, Jiangsu Province, China in 1914, Fang Zhaoling was a precocious child with strong interests in Chinese calligraphy. She studied bird-and-flower painting under Chen Jiucun and landscape painting under Qian Songyan while at Wuxi Art College. When she was nineteen, she participated in the “White Wave Art Society” exhibition in Wuxi. Her talent and knowledge of Chinese ink art was evident even at a young age. By 1950, she had immigrated to Hong Kong and was a student of Zhao Shao’ang, a leading proponent of the second generation of the Lingnan School. Under his guidance, she produced primarily bird-and-flower paintings. By 1953, she had become a student of the renowned painter Zhang Daqian, canonical artist of twentieth century Chinese ink painting. During the 1960s, she studied paintings by Wu Changshuo and Qi Baishi in great detail, learning to use their free style method of cursive calligraphy to create paintings. During the 1960s-70s she joined Zhang in Brazil and California, painting with him and participating in several overseas exhibitions. She passed away in 2006.