Born in Guangdong province in 1926, Yeh Shih-Chiang studied at the Guangdong Art Academy headed at that time by artist and revolutionary Gao Jianfu, who believed in the revitalization of the Chinese painting language through an innovative infusion of modernist elements. At the age of 21, Yeh and two fellow students decided to take unofficial leave from the Academy and set out on an adventure to travel on foot from Guangdong to the Dunhuang Caves, sketching along the way. With the outbreak of the Chinese Civil War in 1949, they were forced to abort their plans and flee to Taiwan with thousands of other refugees caught in the fighting, but always with the intention of eventually returning to their homeland. In his first few years in Taiwan Yeh studied Fine Arts at the Taiwan Provincial Teachers´ College (now National Taiwan Normal University) in Taipei, where his talent and originality as a calligrapher and ink painter was immediately recognized. However, as time passed and the political rift between Taiwan and the PRC made return to his home impossible, Yeh grew increasingly reclusive and finally left the academy in Taipei to seclude himself in the countryside, steeped in an ascetic mode of life and a literati sensibility.
