It’s Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month and we’re celebrating innovative painter and MacDowell Fellow Teng-Hiok Chiu (1903-1972), who received two residencies at MacDowell, in 1957 then 1958, working in Star then New Hampshire Studio. Born to a wealthy family in the Chinese city of Xiamen, Fujian Province, Chiu had the opportunity to study abroad in 1920, when his father sent him to study at Harvard. While there, he quickly discovered his interest in painting, and the following year enrolled in the nearby School of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston. His studies there inspired him to pursue a preciseness in his technique and the development of an aesthetic philosophy combining the perception of mind with morality. From Boston, he traveled to Europe, including Paris, eventually landing in England in 1924, enrolling at the Royal Academy of Arts, where he won numerous scholarships and competitions. When he graduated, he had the opportunity to satisfy his interest in Chinese art and worked with Laurence Binyon, curator of the Department of Asia at the British Museum. During this time, Chiu excelled at producing works that combined Chinese sensibilities and Western technique, and with a 1931 exhibition in Beijing, began exhibiting work around the globe. In 1938, he settled in New York, where his work earned a solo exhibition at the prestigious Knoedler Gallery in 1942. He befriended many of the city’s cultural elite, including some of the twentieth centuries most influential artists, such as 1972 MacDowell Medalist Georgia O’Keeffe, who admired his use of Western and Eastern elements in his oil paintings. Most recently, a posthumous show featuring his work was exhibited at the Frye Art Museum in Seattle in 2003.
Featured are Chiu's works:
- "Cedar Hill, Vermont" (ND) oil on canvas, 64 x 76.3 cm
- "Summer Isles, Scotland" (1937) oil on canvas, 62 x 84 cm
- "Pownal Centre, Vermont" (1946), oil on board, 29 x 39.5 cm