A Century of Change in Taiwanese Watercolor Painting

Taiwan's density of watercolor learners can be counted among the highest in the world, and in recent years Taiwanese artists have repeatedly achieved strong results in international watercolor competitions. From the paint box brought by a Japanese teacher during the Japanese colonial period to the present day, when three national watercolor associations stand side by side and international watercolor expos are held every year, watercolor painting in Taiwan has traveled a full century.

Sowing the Seeds: Ishikawa Kinichiro and the First Generation (1907-1945)

In 1907, the Japanese watercolor painter Ishikawa Kinichiro (1871-1945) came to Taiwan for the first time and taught at the Taiwan Governor-General's National Language School. He had absorbed the Western Impressionist way of seeing and regarded plein-air sketching as a path toward the pursuit of natural beauty. Ishikawa taught not only technique; he taught students to look at Taiwan with their own eyes. In an era when Taiwan's art world was still dominated by calligraphy and temple decoration, being willing to pick up a watercolor brush was already a form of rebellion.

Ishikawa trained Taiwan's first generation of Western-style painters: Ni Chiang-huai (1894-1943) was one of Taiwan's earliest watercolor painters, as well as the first local collector to fund the art movement with his own money; Lee Tze-fan (1907-1989), known for his Hsinchu landscapes, brought watercolor painting into Taiwan's normal-school education system; Chen Cheng-po (1895-1947), though famous for having oil paintings selected for Japan's Imperial Art Exhibition, also produced remarkable watercolor sketches, but was killed during the February 28 Incident.

In 1927, Ishikawa, together with Shiotsuki Toho (1886-1954, an art teacher at Taihoku Higher School), Gobara Koto, Kinoshita Seigai, and other Japanese painters, jointly promoted the establishment of the "Taiwan Fine Arts Exhibition" (Taiten). Equivalent to the Imperial Art Exhibition in Japan proper, it became the most important platform for Taiwanese painters to present their work.¹ After Ishikawa returned to Japan in 1932, his students founded the "Ichiro Society" using one of his literary names and continued to hold exhibitions every year.

In 1934, eight local Western-style painters, including Liao Chi-chun, Chen Cheng-po, and Yang San-lang, founded the "Taiyang Art Association" in Taipei. It was Taiwan's first independent art organization formed purely by local painters. The Taiyang Art Association held the Taiyang Exhibition every year, creating a dual-track competition with the official Taiten and giving local artists an independent space for presentation that did not rely on the Japanese official system.²

Flowering: From the Postwar Period to Local Awakening (1945-1990)

After the war, painters who came to Taiwan with the Nationalist government brought different forms of nourishment. Ma Pai-sui (1909-2003) fused the washes of Chinese ink painting with the transparency of Western watercolor. He taught for decades at National Taiwan Normal University and influenced countless art teachers. Shiy De-jinn (1923-1981), though primarily known for oil painting, produced large numbers of watercolor sketches of Taiwan's old houses and landscapes in his later years. He was among the earliest painters to use watercolor to record the beauty of Taiwan's vernacular architecture, and his works are now held by the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts.

Lan Yin-ting (1903-1979) was one of Ishikawa's most outstanding students. In 1929, on Ishikawa's recommendation, he was selected as a member of the Royal Watercolour Society; in 1971, he was chosen by art critics as one of the "world's ten great watercolor painters" (the commonly cited name is the "Euro-American Art Critics Association"; for the exact organizational name, readers may consult the original records of the Chang Foundation³). This was the first time Taiwanese watercolor stood on the international stage. With a watercolor technique that fused the brush sensibility of Chinese ink painting, Lan focused on depicting Taiwan's rural scenery and was selected by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as a painter of state gifts.

Liu Chi-wei (1912-2002) was another legend. He did not begin studying painting until the age of 38 and was originally an engineer, yet he became one of Taiwan's most beloved watercolor painters. Liu combined anthropological fieldwork with artistic creation, traveling as far as Borneo and Papua New Guinea. His watercolor style carries the naivete and vitality of primal art.

Hsiao Ju-sung (1922-1992) was a model "teacher-painter." Having taught in Hsinchu for more than forty years, his watercolors are known for precise composition and a quiet atmosphere. Today, Hsinchu has the Hsiao Ju-sung Art Park named after him.

Association Building: The Three Major Associations and International Connections (1990-2010)

Beginning in the 1990s, Taiwan's watercolor world entered a new stage of organization and internationalization. The Taiwan Watercolor Association was the earliest national watercolor organization and regularly held group exhibitions; the Taiwan International Watercolor Society focused on promoting international exchange and now has more than 9,000 Facebook followers; the Chinese Asia-Pacific Watercolor Association, promoted by Hung Tung-piao and others, took "watercolor art, education, and love" as its mission.

The three associations maintained close exchanges with organizations such as the Japan Watercolor Society and the International Watercolor Society (IWS). The "International Watercolor Art Expo" held in Taipei in 2020 was one of the largest watercolor exhibition events in Asia, and the Chimei Museum has also hosted a Taiwan-Japan watercolor society exchange exhibition.

Yang En-sheng (1956-2022) was a representative figure of this period. He used hyperrealist watercolor to depict Taiwan's ecology, including butterflies, birds, and plants. His works possess both artistic value and significance as records of natural science, and he has been called "Taiwan's Archibald Thorburn."

The Contemporary Era: Taiwanese Watercolor on the International Competition Stage (2010-Present)

Chien Chung-wei (1968-) is the most dazzling name for Taiwanese watercolor painting on the international stage. In 2013, he first appeared in a French watercolor art magazine, which featured a ten-page interview with him; in 2015, he became the first Taiwanese painter to receive the distinction of being a signature member of both the American Watercolor Society (AWS) and the National Watercolor Society (NWS); in 2019, he further received the AWS Dolphin Fellowship honor.⁴ He has held workshops in more than twenty countries worldwide. His book The Realm: Chien Chung-wei's Watercolor Art was published in both Taiwan and China and was selected as a "2019 influential book." Chien Chung-wei's style fuses the aesthetics of Chinese artistic conception with Western watercolor technique, proving that watercolor is not merely a "beginner's medium," but a language capable of carrying profound artistic expression.

Hung Tung-piao (1955-) is another important contemporary watercolor artist and educator. Trained in the Department of Fine Arts at National Taiwan Normal University, he has won first prize at the Taiwan Provincial Fine Arts Exhibition, the Literary and Arts Medal, and first prize in the landscape category of an international watercolor competition in Malaysia. He has long served as vice chair of the Chinese Asia-Pacific Watercolor Association, promoting the international visibility of Taiwanese watercolor.

Hsieh Ming-chang (1955-) is known for watercolor education and theoretical writing. Formerly an associate professor in the Department of Fine Arts at National Taiwan University of Arts, he has written such classic teaching texts as The Secrets of Watercolor Technique and Watercolor Creation, training large numbers of Taiwan's middle-generation watercolor painters.

The "Flowing Transformation: Taiwan 50 Modern Watercolor Exhibition," organized by Taiwan Land Development Corporation, traced twenty-two representative painters spanning fifty years, from Lan Yin-ting and Lee Tze-fan to Chien Chung-wei. It has been one of the most comprehensive recent retrospectives on the history of Taiwanese watercolor painting.

Why Is Watercolor in Taiwan Especially Active?

This outcome is the result of several factors intertwined over the long term. The deep foundation laid during the Japanese colonial period cannot be ignored: Ishikawa Kinichiro did not merely teach painting; he established a plein-air tradition and an exhibition system. The normal-school education system incorporated watercolor into its core subjects, from Lee Tze-fan and Ma Pai-sui to today's Department of Fine Arts at National Taiwan Normal University; every generation of art teachers could paint in watercolor. The accessibility of materials also helped: watercolor tools are portable and affordable, and Taiwan's humid climate can, in fact, create distinctive water-mark effects. Community cohesion is reflected in the dense networks of learning and exhibition formed by the three major associations together with local painting societies. Finally, there are international connections: from Lan Yin-ting's Royal Watercolour Society membership to Chien Chung-wei's AWS recognition, Taiwanese painters have continued to gain places in international organizations.

References

Further Reading: Periodization of the Development of Taiwanese Watercolor Painting | Taiwan Land | Painting Taiwan: A New Era of Art - Lan Yin-ting, Liao Chi-chun | Ministry of Foreign Affairs NGO Bilingual Web | Professor Hung Tung-piao | National Art Alliance | Hsieh Ming-chang — Wikipedia | Flowing Transformation: Taiwan 50 Modern Watercolor Exhibition | Taiwan Land Development | Taiwan-Japan Watercolor Society Exchange Exhibition | Chimei Museum | Ten Artistic Figures from Taiwan — Google Arts & Culture / National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts | The Realm: Chien Chung-wei's Watercolor Art | Books.com.tw