The Thomas R. Schiff Gallery and Balcony (Gallery 234 & 235)
Free Admission

Woo Chong Yung 吳仲熊 (1898–1989), also known in the United States as C.Y. Woo, was a highly accomplished painter, calligrapher, and poet from Shanghai. From the 1920s to 1949, Woo was at the center of China’s cultural world, recognized in the art circles of both Shanghai and Beijing. Faced with political persecution in the 1960s, Woo migrated to Columbus, Ohio right before the Cultural Revolution. Once in the United States, Woo became an active presence in the local community, teaching classes in Chinese painting and martial arts and contributing his talents to local arts councils and ethnic festivals in Columbus and central Ohio. By the end of his life, he had essentially become a living legend in Columbus.

From Shanghai to Ohio: Woo Chong Yung (1898–1989) features 88 works, including painting and calligraphy, carved seals, and a Taiji sword drawn from the collections of the Cincinnati Art Museum and The Frank Museum of Art at Otterbein University. Few of these paintings have ever been published or publicly displayed. Woo’s lifetime body of work illustrates how his remarkable experiences of emigrating from China and becoming an American utterly transformed and reshaped both his life and painting. Woo’s unique position in Chinese painting history is especially significant when the mainstream practice of Chinese painting had become a target of Maoist cultural policies and few painters could find creative freedom in the political disorder of the time.