Wang Dongling Biography

Wang Dongling is one of the most successful and gifted of the modernist calligraphers in China and one of the few who has for many years enjoyed an international reputation. His works were influenced by his experience in the United States from 1989 to 1992, when he served as a visiting professor at the University of Minnesota and at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Wang began developing a new form of composition that synthesises traditional Chinese aesthetics with modernist art. Usually there are no decipherable Chinese characters in his works, which have become closer to abstract painting than to calligraphy. Wang Dongling has been enormously influential on the whole development of contemporary calligraphy and ink painting.

His attended imporant exhibitions include: Exhibition of Chinese Art & Civilization of Five Thousand Years (1998), Guggenheim Museum, NY, USA; Brushes with Surprise: The Art of Calligraphy in Modern China (2002), British Museum, London, UK; Ink & Brush – Chinese Writing Art Exhibition (2006), Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY, USA.

His recent solo exhibitions are Brushing the tides (2013), Hanart TZ Gallery, Hong Kong, China; The Daoism of Calligraphy (2011), Zhejiang Museum of Art, Hangzhou, China; Share the Peripateticism (2007), National Art Museum of China, Beijing, China. His works are collected by British Museum, London, UK; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA; Guggenheim Museum, New York, USA; The Palace Museum, Beijing, China; National Art Museum of China, Beijing, China; Zhejiang Art Museum, Hangzhou, China, among others. His monographs published in 2011 include: Wang Dongling’s Writings on Contemporary Calligraphy, Wang Dongling Writes about His Artistic Practice and Wang Dongling’s Writings on Famous Calligraphers and Their Masterpieces.