Rui-Lin HONG

Hong Rui-Lin was born in Taipei, Taiwan, in 1912. Due to his father’s interests in arts and humanities, he has also become interested in art since early childhood. He entered Taiwanese Art Institute and then went to Japan for further learning. Hong went to Japan in 1930, the same year as Chen Te-Wang and Chang Wan-Chuan, but he was the only one who entered Teikoku Art School (now Musashino Art School) and graduated from it in 1936. His first artwork after graduation depicted a rural village in Japan; this subject matter held a unique perspective in the artworks of that period of time. He chose to highlight the civilians and the mine laborers.

In July of 1938, he started working at Ruifang Coal Mining Company. The mining industry became a key inspiration for Hong, who was thus able to build his own distinctive style and became known as the Miner Painter. In his sketchbooks, he caught the beauty of working body. He drew what he saw in reality. His works connected to people’s hearts and often stirred up emotions.

Besides painting the miners, Hong also included subjects such as aborigines and nudes into his works. To the artist himself, drawing was the way to express one’s feelings in a most sincere way. In 1927, after Hong’s retirement, he immigrated to the United States and started to travel around the world and sketched on whatever he had seen, leaving a portfolio of landscapes and scenery paintings under his hands. In 1996, he passed away in Los Angeles.