Way, John

1921

Shanghai , China-2012

Born in Shanghai in 1921, John Way was a Chinese-American artist, who became known for his bold paintings that combine layers of colours inspired by Chinese calligraphy and Abstract Expressionist painting. Way began studying calligraphy at the age of ten under the famous artist Li Zhongqian, the nephew and student of Li Ruiqing. At sixteen he had his first calligraphy exhibition, which garnered him praise for his works. In 1949 he and his family moved to Hong Kong where he joined the Hong Kong Art Club and for the first time was exposed to and able to study Western art. His paintings of this period are typically figurative in the subject matter. He moved to Boston in 1956 and studied engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. During 1960s, Way began to feel that abstraction best enabled him to express himself as an artist. Notably, his oil paintings became suffused with colour in such a way that space breathes and gives the impression of great depth. He “wrote” over these layers with a thick brush of darker paint, reminiscent of the free-flowing movement of the calligrapher’s brush. He went to Paris for further studies in 1975 and published a series of four Chinese calligraphy books in 1981, 1986, 1991 & 1999. He passed away in 2012.

Alisan Fine Arts has organised three solo exhibitions for him in 2001, 2003 and 2006, and exhibited his work as part of Syncretic Visions: The First Generation of Chinese Diaspora Artists in America, a curated selection of Chinese-American diaspora artists shown at Fine Art Asia in 2015. His works have been exhibited in over forty solo and group shows around the world, including in the United States, France, Switzerland, Germany, China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. He was chosen in 1965 to exhibit alongside Hartung, Pollock, and Warhol in an exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston titled Painter without a Brush. In 1997, he was listed in “Who’s Who in International Art” and in 1998 he was Appointed Art Professor, at the Accademia Internazionale Greci Marino, in Italy. His work was selected in Switzerland to be part of a postage stamp series in 2000, 2002 and 2004. A major catalogue was published for his retrospective in 2001 at Shanghai Art Museum. In 2006, an exhibition of his calligraphy and oil paintings were on show at the Honolulu Academy of Arts in Hawaii, and a 90-Year Retrospective in Beijing 2010. His works have been collected by the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, United States; Pacific Asia Museum, Pasadena, United States; Hong Kong Museum of Art.

BIOGRAPHY
1921   Born in Shanghai, son of a collector of Chinese painting and calligraphy
1931   Began to study Chinese calligraphy under Li Zhongqian (1881-1956), nephew of the great master Li Ruiqing (1867-1920)
1949   Left Shanghai for Guangzhou in May and settled in Hong Kong in September
1951   Joined the Hong Kong Art Club and for the first time experiments with Western Art techniques such as sketching from live models
1956   Emigrated to Boston, MA, USA with his family
1957-8   Studied engineering at MIT, enrolled in “Form and Design” at MIT School of Architecture to learn the theory of modern art
1973   Moved to Los Altos, CA, USA
1975   Lived and studied in Paris, France
1981   Published Chinese Calligraphy Series No.1 “Mao Kung Tin”
1985   Ten oil on paper paintings accepted in “Le Salon Des Nations à Paris 1985,” Paris, France
1986   Published Chinese Calligraphy Series No.2 “Oracle Bone Couplets”
1991   Published Chinese Calligraphy Series No.3 “A Thousand Character Essay in Cursive Chinese Calligraphy Style”
1997   “Hommage à John Way” published in Who’s Who in International Art. A painting was selected for reproduction on a Swiss postage stamp
1998   Appointed Art Professor, Accademia Internazionale “Greci Marino,” Vinzoglio, Italy
1999 Published Chinese Calligraphy Series No.4 “Yeh Hoa Ming” in Shanghai, China
2000   Another painting was selected for the Swiss postage stamp series “Celebration de l’Annee 2000, Artistes et Maitres”
2002   A painting was selected the Swiss postage stamp series “Celebration de l’Annee 2000, Artistes et Maitres”
2004   A painting “Red and Blue” was selected for the Swiss postage stamp series “Celebration de l’Annee 2000, Artistes et Maitres”
2012   Passed away in San Francisco, USA

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2010

90-Year Retrospective of Chinese-American Artist John Way, Art Vim Gallery, Beijing, China

2006

Painterly Calligraphy, John Way, Alisan Fine Arts, Hong Kong
Order from Disorder: The Ancient Art of Chinese Calligraphy and Abstract Expressionism by John Way, Honolulu Academy of Arts, Hawaii, USA

2003

Alisan Fine Arts, Hong Kong

2001

New Age Gallery, Taiwan
Shanghai Art Museum, Shanghai, China
Alisan Fine Arts, Hong Kong

1994

Gallery On The Rim, San Francisco, CA, USA

1984

The Academy Gallery, Academy of Art College, San Francisco, CA, USA

1981

Calligraphy, National Museum of History, Taipei, Taiwan

1977

Oil Painting on Paper, Galerie Serogian & Bahls, Heidelberg, Germany

1976

Oil Paintings, Rubican Gallery, Los Altos, CA, USA

1970

Oil Painting, Joan Peterson Gallery, Boston, MA, USA

1968

Oil Painting, Stratton Center, MIT Gallery, Boston, MA, USA

1967

Joan Peterson Gallery, Boston, MA, USA

1963

Joan Peterson Gallery, Boston, MA, USA

1960

Nexus Gallery, Boston, MA, USA

1946

Calligraphy, Painting and Seal Carving, Art Gallery of China, Shanghai, China

1937

Calligraphy, Sun Gallery, Shanghai, China

Selected Group Exhibitions
2018

West Bund Art & Design Fair 2018, Alisan Fine Arts, West Bund Art Center, Shanghai, China

2016

Alisan Fine Arts: Celebrating 35 Years of Promoting Chinese Contemporary Art, Hong Kong Central Library, Hong Kong

2015

Synretic Visions: The First Generation of Chinese Artists in America, Alisan Fine Arts, Fine Art Asia, Hong Kong Convention & Exhibition Centre, Hong Kong

2014

Art Basel Hong Kong, Alisan Fine Arts, Hong Kong Convention & Exhibition Centre, Hong Kong

1997

Geneva-Palexpo, Geneva, Switzerland

1993

International Biennial, Museum of Modern Art of Miami, Miami, FL, USA

1985

Le Salon des Nations à Paris 1985, Paris, France

1975-1976

American Painters in Paris, Paris, France

1969

Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, MA, USA

1968

Decordova Museum, Lincoln, MA, USA

1965

Painter without a Brush, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, MA, USA, chosen to exhibit alongside deKooning, Pollock, and Kline

1964

Boston Arts Festival, Boston, MA, USA

1963

New England Art of Today, Northeastern University, Boston, MA, USA
Turn Toward Peace, Boston, MA, USA

1962

Chapter of Our Time, New York, USA

1960

Art Gallery, Boston University, Boston, MA, USA

1959

Nexus Gallery, Boston, MA, USA

1958

Mystic Art Exhibition, Mystic, CT, USA

1951-1955

Hong Kong Art Club Annual Exhibitions, Hong Kong

SELECTED MUSEUM COLLECTIONS
Iris and Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Art, Stanford University Museum, Stanford, CA, USA
Pacific Asia Museum, Pasadena, CA, USA
Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, CA, USA