Liu Haisu at the Grand Canyon

A little over a month ago, the Center kicked off celebrations in honor of the 125th anniversary of LIU Haisu (1896-1994). He was an accomplished artist, outstanding educator and esteemed scholar.

As we saw in our previous post, Liu was a proponent of outdoor sketching. He organized various sketching activities for his students and traveled to many different places to sketch. One great source of inspiration for him was Huangshan. The mountain range has sparked a large number of paintings and sketches.

Another natural wonder that inspired Liu Haisu is the Grand Canyon in the United States. He traveled to Arizona in May 1990, when he was nearly 95 years old. While there, he created two oil paintings and one Chinese ink painting. The process has been documented and is shared here today. What do you think of Liu’s artistic vigor?