Chen Chi
Chen Chi (1912-2005)
(l-r)Artists Eugene Kingman, Kenneth Callahan, Richard Diebenkorn, and Chen Chi, on the Gila Project, Arizona.
Chen Chi was born in Wusih Kiangsu, China in 1912. He taught painting at the Wu Pen and
Huai Chiu high schools for girls from 1938 to 1944, and at the St. John's University School
of Architecture in Shanghai from 1942 to 1946. He first began exhibiting his work in annual
art exhibitions in Shanghai in 1940. Chi came to America in 1947 through a cultural
exchange program to paint and exhibit his work. His first one-man show in the United States
was at the Village Art Center in New York in 1947. Chi's works have been shown
extensively throughout the United States including at the Portland (Maine) Museum of Art
and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (1948); the Miami Beach Art Center (1952); the La
Jolla Art Center and the Witte Memorial Museum (1953); and the Charles and Emma Fry Art
Museum in Seattle (1955). In addition to watercolors, Chi also worked as an illustrator, his
illustrations appearing in the Ford Motor Company Magazine (1950 and 51); Colliers
(1951 and 52); Sports Illustrated (1955 and 60); and Horizon (1958). Chi
published numerous books featuring his works including: Chen Chi - Paintings (1965);
Two or Three Lines from the Sketchbooks of Chen Chi (1969); China from the
Sketchbooks of Chen Chi (1974); Chen Chi: Watercolors, Drawings, Sketches
(1980); Chen Chi Watercolors (1981); and Heaven and Water: Chen Chi
(1983).
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