Stella Benson (1892-1933), feminist, novelist, poet, travel writer and China sojourner who went to China with her husband James (Shaemas) O’Gorman Anderson who worked with the Imperial Chinese Maritime Customs. They lived in Nanning, Beihai and Hong Kong. She talks about her China experiences in her books Worlds Within Worlds, and her most famous novel The Far-Away Bride. She was obviously connected back in England despite living in rather remote places for much of her married life – as witnessed by her portrait by Wyndham Lewis below. She died in Tonkin.
Benson with pupils – Hong Kong 1920
Benson in China c.1930 seeking serenity
Stella Benson by Wyndham Lewis, 1932
Benson and her dog Penko – Pakhoi 1933 – shortly before her death
The following short poem by Empson (1906-1984) is from his 1940 collection, The Gathering Storm (London: Faber & Faber). The poems in the collection were written between Empson’s time in Japan around 1933 and then in China, around 1939. Empson had been given a three-year contract to teach at Peking University but, upon arrival discovered that, due to the Japanese invasion of China, he no longer had a post. He joined the exodus of the university’s staff to Kunking and the hastily organised Lianda (Southwest Associated University). At some point Empson passed through Manchouli (Manzhouli) on the Russo-Inner Mongolian border….
Manchouli
I find it normal, passing these great frontiers,
That you scan the crowds in rags eagerly each side
With awe; that the nations seem real; that their ambitions
Having such achieved variety within one type, seem sane;
Excellent to see Bloomsbury Asian Arguments Tenth Anniversary edition of Leta Hong Fincher’s Leftover Women on this great list from Amy Hawkins in The Guardian…. (some other wise choices too) – click here to read the list…
A gifted watercolourist and educator, Eddie Chau’s skill in depicting the lush natural environment was first recorded in the paintings he executed as a young adult in the mid-1960s in Indonesia. Documenting the rural environment in and around Bandung, his work is exemplary in terms of his attention to detail and the colour palette employed to render the village scenes in a warm light. These early years were followed by material scarcity and simpler monochrome drawings executed in China’s Guangdong province, further developing his genius for observing and recording both larger pictorial contexts and minuscule details.
Arguably the best-known and most widely collected of Chau’s works are the panoramic views of Hong Kong’s landscapes which he made in watercolour and pen. Primarily documentary in character, Chau’s depictions incorporate a rich and fantastical palette. Often seen from vantage points on the Peak or from Lion Rock, or drawn as imaginary bird’s-eye views, his paintings are extraordinary testaments to the magnificence that Chau saw in Hong Kong.
Chau’s contribution to the art scene is encapsulated in his numerous view-paintings that memorialise Hong Kong in what are considered exemplary paintings, as well as crucial historical documents recording a city undergoing continuous waves of urban development. This comprehensive monograph bears witness to the artist’s nearly sixty-year-long career and will serve as a significant contribution to the study of the history of local Hong Kong art for years to come.
Eddie Chau (1945–2020) was a Chinese painter born in Bandung, Indonesia. When the anti-Chinese riots broke out in 1965, many overseas Chinese returned home. Eventually settling in Hong Kong in 1992, Eddie became known for his panoramic watercolour landscapes of Hong Kong.
The ex-libris of historian, bibliophile & philanthropist José Maria “Jack” Braga, whose family settled in Macao in 1712 and moved to Hong Kong in 1842. After a stint working for HSBC in Hong Kong, Braga moved to Macao in 1922 to teach at Seminario de São Jose & Liceu de Macau. In the 1920s he was a founder of Diario de Macau and Reuters man in Macao throughout the Second World War…
Who was the first emperor of China? Why was he the ‘first’? What was ‘China’ under the Qin? Ep1 The Invention of China in BBC Radio 4 with Misha Glenny with Linda Jaivin, Frances Wood, Steve Tsang, Tania Branigan, me & others – now on
Daiwa Foundation Japan House – 13/14 Cornwall Terrace (Outer Circle) – London NW1 4QP
Paul Horiuchi, George Tsutakawa, Zoe Dusanne, John Matsudaira, and Kenjiro Nomura at the Zoe Dusanne Gallery, Seattle, 1952. Photo: Elmer Ogawa
In this talk, David F. Martin will discuss the art of Japanese-American painters active in Seattle, Washington in the early to mid- 20th century. Beginning with the first generation Issei to the next generation of Nisei, several of these artists achieved national and international reputations during their lives. However, their careers and personal lives suffered from being interned in incarceration camps on the American west coast during WWII. Martin will feature a wide range of styles practised by these artists from impressionism to modernism and abstraction. He will present rare images of paintings completed by some of the artists during their incarceration.
David F. Martin is American curator and writer specializing in the art history of Seattle and the Pacific Northwest associated with Cascadia Art Museum in Edmonds, Washington, USA. For over thirty years, his career has focused on women, Japanese and Chinese Americans, gay & lesbian and other American minorities who had established national and international reputations during the period 1890-1960.
Patuá is a Portuguese-Asian Creole language once quite widely spoken in Macao. It has largely fallen out of use and fluent speakers now number perhaps only dozens in Macao and possibly a hundred in Hong Kong. So any attempt to revive Patuá is welcome and Elisabela Larrea’s book “Unchinho di Língu Maquista: Patuá Bit by Bit: Flashcard Book” looks like a good way to start. I think I might give it a go…
An interview with Elisabela and more on “Unchinho di Língu Maquista: Patuá Bit by Bit: Flashcard Book” in the Macao Daily Posthere.
