ILLUSTRATED:

Born to a prominent family in Taiwan' s Chiayi area in 1914, Yoshio Chang (aka Chang Yi-hsiung), was inspired to become an artist at the tender age of eleven when he saw Chen Chengpo, one of the doyens of Western-style painting in Taiwan, sketching from life at Chiayi city's 'Central Fountain'. Under Chen's guidance and instruction, Chang's natural talents soon began to bloom. Still a teenager, he went to Japan to attend middle school there, and at the age of 18 he entered the Japan Imperial Art Academy (today Musashino Art University). Later he studied at the Kawabata Painting School, now having decided to devote his entire life to painting, no matter how difficult it would be. Indeed, Chang spent much of his career in destitute circumstances. He was the first painter in the history of Taiwanese art to go to Japan and Paris to hone his skills and broaden his horizons. In the 1980s, he settled down in Paris for many years before returning to Tokyo, the place of his early studies, in recent years.

The poverty-stricken first two decades of his career put his rather fierce character into even sharper focus. A vagrant for much of his life, he always wore his heart on his sleeve and showed a perseverance verging on the obstinate when it came to pursuing his goals. Unlike other painters who could rely on support from their family or colleagues, Chang had to earn a living doing portraits for money. He used to speak of himself as 'the poorest of the poor'. It was not until 1981 that his greatest dream came true: to live and work as an artist in Paris, the city of his dreams. In 1987, he became the first Taiwanese artist to be awarded the French government's Annuity for Artists, and one year later he was made a member of the French Salon (again being the first Taiwanese to be granted this honour). Constantly striving to improve himself and his art, Chang is prone to modestly deny his talent. It fits this picture that at the age of seventy he would state that only now had he mastered the subtler points of perspective and linear composition, and that he was still attempting to create the 'ideal' painting-something he claims to have done only at the age of eighty! Yoshio Chang particularly excels at still lifes, and especially in his later years he attained an outstanding level of maturity in this genre, suffusing his creations with his own unique skill and character.