Prof Ju Paints Boy and Buffalo

Master Chinese brush painter Professor I-Hsiung Ju (朱一雄 or Zhu Yixiong in Pinyin) demonstrates Boy and Water Buffalo during a 2003 Princeton workshop filmed by Virginia Lloyd-Davies. The ox or water buffalo is the Chinese Zodiak sign for 2021. Prof I-Hsiung Ju’s books on the basic subjects of “The Four Gentlemen” (“Book of Bamboo”, “Book of Orchid”, “Book of Chrysanthemum” and “Book of Plum”) are favorites with Chinese brush painting and sumi-e students throughout the world and are currently available as ebooks at Barnes and Noble http://bit.ly/3rBxpD0. His tutorial videos on flowers, birds, animals, landscapes, rocks and waterfalls can be purchased as DVDs at http://www.ihsiungju.com. You can also see more of his Chinese brush paintings at http://www.joyfulbrush.com.

Professor Ju was born in Jiangyin, Jiangsu, China in 1923. He graduated from the National University of Amoy in 1947 and received his B.A. degree in Chinese art and literature. Because of the war in China, he moved to the Philippines to teach and to continue his studies, receiving a B.F.A. in painting and an M.A. in history from the University of Santo Tomas in Manila. While in the Philippines, he was a prizewinner in graphic art, oil painting, and Nanga works and held many one-man shows in Australia, Canada, China, England, Hong Kong, Japan, and the Philippines.
In 1969, he was hired as Artist-in-Residence at Washington and Lee University http://www.wlu.edu in Lexington, VA. and in 1970, he received tenure as Professor of Art. He was awarded the Best Art Educator of the Year in 1974 by the Chinese National Writers’ and Artists' Association in Taipei, Taiwan, and Distinguished Artist of the Year in 1978 by the National Museum of History of the Republic of China. In 1996, Prof. Ju was presented with the Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Art Award by the Philippine Chinese Association of America.

In 1974 he created the “Art in Taiwan” program at Washington & Lee University. Every two years, he led groups of students to spend six weeks experiencing the beauty of the island, local food, culture, and learning Chinese art from famous artists. In 1975 Prof. Ju also established the Art Farm Gallery in Lexington, VA where he conducted Chinese brush painting workshops and presented art exhibitions featuring young rising artists. After his retirement from Washington and Lee University in 1989, he continued to teach Chinese brush painting through correspondence courses and workshops, to give lectures and painting demonstrations, and to exhibit his paintings.

In 2002, he relocated his painting studio and home to Princeton, NJ where he continued to exhibit his works at his art gallery. He gave lectures and demonstrations to various groups in Princeton including the docents at Princeton University Art Museum, the Old Guard at Princeton University and the Women’s College Club of Princeton. In 2004 he held a one-man art show in Wuxi, China; in 2006 he took his students to Jiangyin, China, for a painting workshop with local artists, and had a one-man show at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art in Portland, Oregon.

In 2007 Prof. Ju arranged for his students to attend Master Classes at the National Taiwan University of Arts in Taipei, Taiwan. On his 85th birthday, Prof. Ju’s “85 Retrospective Exhibit” opened at the International Art Gallery of the National Taiwan University of Arts, showing 65 years of artworks from 1942 to the present. This show included his stunning 16 brush painting panel series depicting the Yangtze River, from its source in Qinghai Province to its mouth in Shanghai, going eastward to the East China Sea.

In 2009 he published a book containing memories of his life in China, the Philippines and the United States. In September 2010, he exhibited his new 20-panel Huangshan landscape series at Jiangnan University in Wuxi, China. In January 2011, his brush paintings were on exhibit at the Lyndon Arts Center in Athens, GA. In October 2011, he exhibited his Yangtze series and his Huangshan series at the Staniar Gallery at Washington & Lee University (https://my.wlu.edu/staniar-gallery/pa....

I-Hsiung Ju, Emeritus Professor of Art of Washington and Lee University, passed away on March 17, 2012. A poet and philosopher, his paintings are lessons in living and appreciation of nature. Following the Chinese painting tradition, he signed his paintings with his art name Tan Feng (丹鋒).

In 2015 a retrospective of his work was exhibited at the Millennium Gate Museum in Atlanta GA, and his students Virginia Lloyd-Davies, Michael Kopald, Charlene Fuhrman-Schulz, Grace Ju, Carol Yee and Jamaliah Morais demonstrated during the opening event. I-Hsiung Ju's name is engraved on the stone of the Millennium Gate Museum in honor of his skills as a world-renowned painter, educator and pioneer in establishing artistic cooperation and understanding between the United States, China, Taiwan and the Philippines.