Ching-cheng Huang

Ching-cheng Huang (Chinese: 黃清埕/黃清呈; pinyin: Huang Qingcheng; Wade–Giles: Huang Ch'ing-ch'eng; 1912–1943) is a Taiwanese sculptor. He is counted among the important pioneers of Taiwanese modern art. Prof. Lai mentions him in one breath with Ju Ming (朱銘). Huang’s sculpture “Study of a Head” (頭像 ‘tóuxiàng’) was the first modern work of art in Taiwan that was declared a part of the island’s cultural heritage that is protected by a new law passed in 2009. It is exhibited in the Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts.

Ching-cheng Huang was born in Eastern Pond Village(池東村 chí dōngcūn), Siyu Township, on Western Islet (si yu = xi yǔ 西嶼 ), a small island of the Penghu Islands group (澎湖). This island group had been ceded to Japan by the Chinese government in 1895, like the rest of Taiwan and the Ryu-Kyo Islands, after the First Sino-Japanese War. Ching-cheng Huang's father owned a pharmacy. Ching-cheng Huang, who was raised in a fairly wealthy family, showed an interest in creative activity at an early age. As a boy, he already did small figures made of clay, his elder brother later remembered. He also painted, showing considerable talent which prompted a teacher to encourage him. Because the pharmacy was located in Kaohsiung (高雄), a major location in South Taiwan which was already a fairly big city, he was sent there in 1925, in order to attend Kaohsiung Senior High School. He dropped out, however, because he dedicated too much time to painting. Therefore, his father had him educated by a private teacher. Because his father wanted him to become a pharmacist, he was sent to a teacher of pharmacology in 1933. Then, he went on to Tokyo, for advanced studies in pharmacology.

Huang’s desire was to be an artist, however. In 1936, being just 24, Ching-cheng Huang was admitted to a Japanese art academy, the Tōkyō Bijutsu Gakkō (東京美術学校) or Tokyo School of Fine Arts, an art academy that had a good reputation.

When Ching-cheng Huang had departed for Tokyo in 1936, the Second Sino-Japanese war was less than a year away, and the terrible Nanking Massacre would happen in November 1937. Chauvinism and militarist sentiments were on the rise. The situation deteriorated with the outbreak of the war against China (1937), and even more so since 1939/40 when the democracy that still had existed up to a point in the late 1930s, was rapidly suspended.

...
Wikipedia