Master painter Huo Chunyang was born in 1946 inQingyuan County, Hebei Province. Since 1969, the year he graduated from the Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts, he has taught at the TAFA. Today Huo enjoys a special allowance as granted by the government, and he fulfills many artistic, scholarly and official roles. These posts include serving as director, professor, and tutor of postgraduates at the Painting Department, head of the Art Gallery of TAFA, member of the Chinese Artists' Association (CAA), member of the Chinese Calligraphers' Association, vice-president of the Tianjin Branch, CAA, member of the Tianjin Society for Young People in the Exchange of Fine Arts, guest painter of the Tianjin Studio of Painting, specially engaged painter of the Chinese Academy of Calligraphy and Paintings under People's Daily, specially engaged painter of the Studio of Calligraphy and Paintings under the Xinhua News Agency, and specially engaged painter of the Studio of Calligraphy and Paintings under China Central Television (CCTV).
Huo Chunyang is expert in the freehand brushwork of flowers and birds; and in the mid-1970s his paintings began to draw considerable attention in art circles. His works particularly gained fame in the 1980s, and Huo became an acclaimed artist of modern China. Many of his works have been widely displayed while winning numerous prestigious awards. In 1997, he was cited as one of China's Top 100 Master Painters by the China Federation of Literary and Art Circles.
In recent years, a great number of Huo's works have been collected and exhibited by organizations and institutions. In Beijing, these august venues include the Great Hall of the People, the National Art Museum of China, the Chairman Mao Memorial Hall, and the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse, and outside the capital his paintings hang at the TianjinArt Museum, the ShenzhenMuseum, and the Shandong Fine Arts Exhibition Hall. Many museums overseas also hold and exhibit his work. Huo has also toured abroad exchanging ideas with his foreign colleagues, and his works have been featured within the pages of numerous albums.
The cacophony of excessive promotions and opportunism bursts forth in today's culturally and economically energetic China. While many painters swim with the trendy currents of fashion brought on by rapid urbanization, Huo never abated in his dedicated research and his approach to the nature of art in his drive to please the eye and mind with his paintings of flowers and birds. His paintings are clear, calm and soothing.
Many believe that Huo Chunyang is one of the most talented of middle-aged painters in modern China. His paintings feature simplicity and tranquility in light ink and dry-brush strokes, showcasing his understanding of traditional Chinese culture and philosophy.
His paintings are like his character, it has been said."Petals shed in silence, and he is as indifferent as chrysanthemums,"is the lyrical characterization offered by one admiring art critic. For years Huo has applied his mind and brush to the seeking of truth in the genre of traditional Chinese painting. His audience can look into the nature of the man by way of his lightly-inked and elegantly-stroked winter plums, bamboo, cymbidium, and chrysanthemums.
