This biography from the Archives of AskART:
| Born in Seattle, Washington to Chinese parents from the village of
Toyshan, Canton, China, Andrew Chin was a painter, linocut artist and
teacher who formed The Andrew Chinn Studio of Art in 1953. From
this school, which he operated for five years in his studio and for the
remainder of his career, he espoused
traditional Chinese approaches with emphasis on learning the 'basics'
such as composition, perspective, precise drawing and
calligraphy. Chin also taught watercolor painting at the Seattle
Central Community College.
His early subjects included landscapes, still lifes, and
birds with lotus leaves, and later in his career he painted many
landscapes of scenes around Seattle. Watercolor was a favorite
medium.
He was the second of their children
and arrived five years after they emigrated to America. His
mother died from the flu epidemic when he was three years old, so his
grandfather took the children back to China where Andrew stayed until
1927 when he returned to Seattle for two years, and then returned to
China, but came back to Seattle in 1933. In China he did
watercolors and some plein-air painting, an influence brought to China
from artists who had studied in Europe.
In China during his childhood, he had very strick education from a
school master, and his uncle encouraged his artistic talents. In
Seattle, he and six other artists formed the Chinese Art Club, and
shared a studio at 815 Jackson Street, and had monthly
exhibitions from 1933 to 1937. The other members were Seung Eng, Young Eng, Fay
Chong, Lawrence Yun, Henry Eng, and Yippie Eng, and primarily they worked in the traditional Asian style.
In the 1930s, Chin was also part of the Federal Art Project, called the
Washington Project of Arts, and the director was Bruce Inverarity who
invited Chin into the Project. Among Chin's artist associates
were Morris Graves, Guy Anderson, Carl Morris, Jacob Elshin, Fay Chong
and Hilda Deutsch.
Following this period, Andrew Chin enrolled at the University of
Washington, where an important influence was Walter Isaacs, Dean of the
School of Art who gave Chin an award for his excellence in portrait
painting. Other teachers were Igo Hart, Johannes Molzahn, Ray
Hill and Ruth Penington, who taught him lettering. While a
student, Andrew Chin began exhibiting at the Northwest Annual
exhibition of the Puget Sound Group of Northwest Painters. His
submissions, many of them plein air, were landscapes with trees, rocks,
water and mountains, and expressed his reverence for nature. As a
result of the positive reception to his paintings, he was voted into
membership of the Puget Sound Group.
For thirty-one years, Andrew Chin worked for the Boeing company where
artist-workers including Chin formed the Boeing Art Club that included
western painter Don Crowley. Chinn also continued with his
painting and exhibited many times at the Annual Exhibition of the Frye
Museum of Art. He also had two one-man exhibitions at the Frye
Museum and one at the Seattle Art Museum.
When asked about his classical Chinese brush painting that had the
insertion of calligraphic characters, Chin explained: ". . .sometime
you feel so good you write poetries in there. Sometime it's only
description of the time you paint it. Always date. See, your
signature's in there; your chop is in there."
Source:
Matthew Kangas, 1991 Interview with the Artist in Seattle, Washington for the Smitnsonian Archives of American Art.
http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/oralhistories/transcripts/chinn91.htm
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