About the Artists
Kwan Y. Jung (1932-2014)
Born in Toison, China, Kwan Yee Jung graduated in 1961 from New Asia College, now a part of the Chinese University of Hong Kong with a B.A. degree in painting. He was influenced by Ding Yanyong and Chen Shi-Wen while at school. As a U.S. citizen born in a foreign land, Kwan came to the United States with an American passport in 1963 and settled down with his family in San Diego. He did graduate work at San Diego State College from 1968 to 1969. In the following years Kwan won over 70 awards nationally and internationally. His paintings were exhibited in national annual shows and were added to the collections of museums, universities, colleges, art associations as well as corporations across the nation.
Kwan was better recognized for his abstract landscape paintings though he was a master in Chinese brush painting also known as “sumaqua” (water-ink-painting). In 2003, North Light Books published his book “Chinese Brush Painting – Step by Step”, an instructional book which was well received and translated into French and German. A DVD came about also on Chinese Brush Painting.
Kwan became a member of the California Watercolor Society, later renamed the National Watercolor Society (NWS), and demonstrated watercolor painting for the San Diego Watercolor Society in 1970. In the process of becoming a signature member in the American Watercolor Society (AWS), Kwan’s paintings were accepted 3 years consecutively with one painting receiving the "Clare Stout Award”. Kwan became of a member of the AWS in 1976.
A significant achievement for Kwan was being elected a National Academician in 1994, becoming one of a select membership of 450 living artists and architects of the National Academy of Design. The process involved being nominated as an Associate National Academician in 1993, later passing through two elections and finally being approved by over two thirds majority by the Academicians, his future peers. Kwan’s work “On the Sunny Side’ is in the NA permanent collection was seen in the “Language of Landscape” exhibition at the academy in 1997.
Kwan was listed in the Who’s Who of American Art, Who’s Who in the West and Who’s Who in America.
Yee Wah Jung (1936-2019)
Yee Wah was born into a family of prominent artists from Guangzhou, Guangdong China. Her father Yip Yuen Tsin (Yip Yan Cheung) was a cartoonist and known for his paintings of refugees in the war against the Japanese invasion of China. Her mother Poon Shiu Fong (Poon Chiu Fung), a mural painter and art teacher was famous for her Confucius series murals that donned the wall of public schools and the Ambassador Hotel in Hong Kong. Yee Wah first studied art from her parents and then at the Chung Nam Arts School in Wubei, now the Guangzhou City Arts School, and subsequently at the New Asia College, within the Chinese University of Hong Kong. She married Kwan Yee Jung in 1962 and moved to San Diego in 1963. She was a signature member of the National Watercolor Society and the Watercolor USA Honor Society and was listed in the Who’s Who of American Art, Who’s Who in the World, the Who’s Who of Women and Artists of Chinese Origin in North America Directory.
Initially focused on the highly disciplined "tu-aunqua" (labor-table-painting) approach, her painting style later evolved and was described as vibrant kaleidoscopes of color bursting like rockets across the paper to form mosaic-like multicolored shapes and configurations. She also enjoyed painting watercolors depicting neighborhoods and buildings around San Diego and still-lifes of everyday objects.