林賢靜

Lin Hsien-ching (1911-1982), a native of Chenghai, Guangdong, studied under Gao Jian-fu and Gao Qi-feng—founders of the Lingnan School of Painting—during her high school years, and later graduated from the Shanghai Art Academy. She subsequently taught at the Chaozhou Academy of Art in Guangdong and Meixian Women’s Normal School. In her youth, she participated in the New Women’s Movement in the Chaoshan region, and was one of the representative Shanghai School painters of the early Republican era who later relocated to Taiwan. Renowned for her bird-and-flower paintings, Lin championed the philosophy of “drawing from the past to enrich the present.” In her dynamic artistic practice, she embraced the technical mastery of Shanghai School master Ren Bo-nian, the epigraphic aesthetic of Wu Changshuo, and the expressive simplicity of Qi Baishi. After World War II, Lin moved to Taiwan and served on the faculty of Taiwan Provincial Junior Teachers College (now National Taipei University of Education) and the National Academy of Arts (now National Taiwan University of Arts). In 1974, at the invitation of NMH, she participated in the museum’s “Worldwide Touring Exhibition of Chinese Painting and Calligraphy.”