Miaio Girl by Huang Yun Yu

At the 1952 exhibition I bought many photographic reproductions of these beautiful pictures of Miaio in traditional dress. The peasant girl and slippers, above, are among the series I have. Were they all sold, I wonder, or does Huang Yun Yu still have many of these treasures?

Slippers by Huang Yun Yu

Huang Yun Yu -Exhibition 1952

This was the exhibition invitation card that, following the request to Tseng Yu (see letter in Chinese and translation below) was sent out to our group of friends in Hong Kong. These included Dr Cherry Heath, her fiance Gordon Wigglesworth, and Dr Elizabeth Tang (Han Suyin) who each bought several woodcuts.

Huang Yun Yu - Portrait of a Boy

This portrait of a small boy, by Huang Yun Yu, was a gift to his friend Tseng Yu. It was hung in the hallway of my house in East Ham for many years as I took care of it while Tseng Yu was in Paris and then in Rome.

Backstory: 1949

In 1949, at the age of 23, I was appointed Lecturer in English, specialising in Linguistics, at the University of Hong Kong. It was an exhilarating time: Mao’s Peoples Liberation Army had swept down through China, and a Communist government had been established on the mainland - hardy more than a stone’s throw away..

In Hong Kong the old colonial regime was only just being re-established after the Japanese occupation, and refugees were pouring in. These included a new type of student at the University - .sophisticated young men and women, with excellent English most of whom had matriculated from mission schools in Shanghai.

Some time after term had begun, we received a late application supported by acadenic transcripts from Peking University which were entirely in Chinese. To test the applicant’s English, we asked him to write an essay on a subject of his choice. I thought the essay brilliant: it was on art history and I marked it at 90% ,However, my colleague, who had counted up the mistakes in grammar and syntax, said it was so badly written as to be unintelligble. After heated argument at the Faculty Board, it was agreed to accept the student, on condition that I took responsibility for improving his English. His name was TSENG YU.

A first meeting with Huang Yun Yu

NEW YEAR'S DAY 1951

Tseng Yu arrives at my flat as I am having breakfast.
He wants to take me to see a painter. As we walk down through the university compound we meet Amy, another of my students, whom we invite to come with us.

We go by ferry over to Kowloon then take a bus into the New Territories. As we walk first along the shore then inland, TY wonders whether we should press on. He says, apologetically, that he doesn¹t know why he has dragged us such a long way as this man is a bad painter and not worth seeing.

Well the day is warm even though winter, and the company is good so, having got so far, we agree to continue. After an hour or so TY says we are there. Walking though a bamboo grove and past a stream, we enter into a courtyard flanked by low buildings. An animated young man comes out to greet us, all shake hands and we sit down among the chickens and running cockroaches. We drink cups of hot water, are shown woodcuts, meet his wife and eat a Sharps toffee,. TY and the friend chat in Chinese then after some 2 hours, leave.

But it is only 2 o¹clock so Tseng Yu suggests we visit another friend. an up-and-coming art photographer Chen Yi. He is not in but I leave my visiting card and a note............

Two days later I receive the invitation to Huang Yun Yu's exhibition and take Mr and Mrs Scott (British Council) to meet him.

This is the first of so many fruitful, and often hilarious times that a group of friends met to enjoy the company of Tseng Yu and his friends Huang Yun Yu and Chen Yi.....and it was the occasion when, (this time on a table napkin), Huang Yun Yu did the first of his many caricature sketches of myself & friends.

Huang YunYu Exhibition Invite

Visiting Huang Yun Yu's Studio

April 7th, 1952
Tonight after dinner in town, Tseng Yu, two friends and I pay a visit to Huang Yun Yu. His studio is tiny – about 9’ x 7’ – and is cram full of paintings, on the walls, on the bed, on the floor, on the desk and on shelves. We drink hot, bitter tea out of painting jars while Yun Yu does a dry-point portrait of me on copper for his exhibition next month. It was nearly spoilt because we got into an argument about communism and Yun Yu became so excited he put my top lip in the wrong place. However, this was merrily restored and the plate steeped in a glass dish full of sulphuric acid. For the rest of the evening, Yun Yu stroked the mixture with a long feather while we were talking. It will be ready tomorrow and we shall see the result. YY says it is more naturalistic than the others he has done of me – nicer but not so ‘good’ artistically. It was 2 in the morning before I got home!

Whoreson typist

I had just washed my hair and was putting it up in curlers when TY rang the door bell. I told him through the letter box to go away. He said he had brought the etching of me Huang, just taken down as the exhibition closed.

So I opened the door and he came in for a chat. He told me that a friend had said the etching made me look like a whoreson typist. Ty said, on the contrary, it beautified me.

Nov 28th, 1951

I am sitting in my office at the University. It is Wednesday afternoon, normally a holiday, but with the end-of-term exams starting next week both students and staff are hard at it. I have just walked through the library and seen blue blazers hunched over every table. The students are distractedly preparing to answer anticipated questions, while I am distractedly trying to find questions for them to answer! We are all getting stressed so it was particularly agreeable to go out at the weekend with Tseng Yu to pay another visit to painter Mr Huang. He did another lightning sketch of me - this time in colour - and also of two Chinese journalists who were visiting him. The portrait of one of the journalists looked exceptionally like a monkey when Mr Huang had finished so his friend took the brush and wrote on it, in beautiful Chinese calligraphy, the poem which translates as:
DO NOT ASK MY NAME
I WOULD RATHER YOU DID NOT KNOW IT.
AND AS FOR MY ORIGIN
NO NEED TO ASK DARWIN,
THE PICTURE SPEAKS FOR ITSELF