Integrating the Chinese painting traditions with Western painting methods, Wu refreshed Chinese ink painting with modern spirits and developed Western oil painting with a Chinese soul. His landscape paintings of his home town in the Jiangnan Region exemplified his mastery of both.
Wu Guanzhong’s Early Life
Born in a poor family in Yixing of Jiangsu Province in 1919, Wu started his first four years’ primary schooling in his own village. Wu’s father was a farmer and a part-time teacher at the village primary school. Being a bright student, Wu supported most of his formal study thereafter by means of government scholarships.
Wu was admitted into Zhejiang Industrial School, a famous technical school of Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, to study engineering. The choice basically secured Wu’s future because engineering made a respectable and stable profession at that time.