ZHONG CHENG

Born in Taishan, Guangdong. As a child, through his mother’s influence, he came to love old books and paintings. Starting in 1949, he began studying painting under Zhao Shao’ang who was one of the most outstanding third-generation artists of the Lingnan School of painting. He won First Prize in ink painting in Japan’s “Asian Youth Artists” exhibition, a Friedman Arts Scholarship in the USA, and the Chung-HsingArts and Litherature Prize from the Taiwan Provincial Writers and Artists Association. Through his career he culcivated untold numbers of emerging artists and was active in promoting Chinese culture to the West. A nature-lover, he transformed his sensitivity for natural things into works of art. His paintings combine Chinese and Western techniques and feature the brilliant colors and strong suggestion of moisture that is characteristic of Lingnan school painting. They also exhibit distinctive spatial compositional arrangement and a lush, lively style.