During his student years in Hong Kong Tseng Yu continued almost obsessively to produce drawings and sketches but it was not until 1951 that one piece of work drew public attention. This was the decorative playbill he designed for the University Arts Association production of Moliere¹s The Miser. The press, public officials and local business people were in the audience and came to chat with him. Tseng Yu subsequently sold pen and ink drawings to local newspapers and was offered a bursary by the British Council to study at The Slade School of Fine Art in London.
Thus in spring 1952 I was writing to ask my parents (who ran a laundry in Kent) to sponsor his studies in Britain and provide guarantees for his visa. By that summer his passage was booked and he was enrolled for the autumn term at The Slade, armed with estimates by my parents of the cost of living in London plus warm invitations to their home in Sandgate.
