Liu Yong was born in 1949 in Taipei and his ancestral home was in the ancient Lin’an, Zhejiang. He is a famous painter, writer and speaker. He was a resident artist of the Danville Art Museum and a full-time resident artist of St. John’s University in New York, an associate professor of the St. Vincent College and a visiting professor at Xiamen University. He has created more than one hundred works about art theories and literature.

    Liu Yong is a contemporary recognized gifted scholar who makes outstanding achievements in art, literature, speech, drama and journalism. He became famous when he was young. He graduated from the Fine Arts Department of Taipei Normal University as the No.1 student and was the student of Huang Junbi and He Jun, masters of landscape and flower-and-bird paintings in Taiwan. His works during this period included “Inside The White Cloud Studio” and “Painting Theory and Technique of Lin Yushan”. He was an all-round painter due to his experience of studying Western painting in the United States. He was invited to attend the Asian Modern Art Exhibition at the age of 23 and the annual Taiwan Arts Exhibition at the age of 25 (exempt from review); he was hired as a resident artist of Danville Museum in the United States at the age of 29 and became a full-time resident artist of St. John’s University in New York at the age of 31. He has held more than 30 personal exhibitions and many of his works are collected by many museums at home and abroad. He published “Collection of Liu Yong’s Paintings”, “Liu Yong’s Art World”, “Liu Yong’s Love and Art”, and “As Beautify as Painting”.

    This exhibitionhas been the largest painting exhibition of Liu Yong that covers the most complete genres.

    “A Man of the Brush and Pen——Retrospective Works of Liu Yong consists of five sections”“Worshipping Ancient Works”“Landscape”“Flowers and Birds”“Modern Water Ink”“Sketch and Study”.A total of 120 works (pieces) and a great deal of literature are presented. The exhibition covers the works that Liu Yong created during various periods of time. His poetic and artistic realm is showed in the combination of painting creation and description, and the stories and sentiment behind the works are shared. The exhibition also includes 120 works of different genres created by Liu Yong. After the exhibition ends, these works will be donated to ZJAM and will be collected in its Arts Literature Center as the first “Personal Library of Great Master” in the museum”.

    In the“Landscape”section,Festival in Longshan Temple” which depicts the old style of Taiwan and “Warm Spring in the Ancient City” which recalls the memory in the ancient city Lin’an. They are the representative “literati paintings” of Liu Yong. He pays attention to narration with details and embraces literature in painting to make the painting poetic and lyrical, as delicate as prose and as thrilling as novels. He is sarcastic from the perspective of characters in the paintings and hides kittens and puppies in unnoticeable places like a naughty boy to deliberately prolong the time that the viewers spent “reading the paintings”. Few know that Liu Yong is native of Hangzhou. His grandfather was the governor of Lin’an in the Republic of China. He has lived abroad for many years, but he cares about the homeland. In recent years, he has returned to his hometown with his wife twice, worshiping his ancestors and searching for his origin. He also sketched the West Lake in Hangzhou and Qingshan Lake in Lin’an. “West Lake Twilight”, “Moonlight in Leifeng Pagoda”, “Melting Snow at Broken Bridge”, “Watching Snow in Huxin Pavilion”, and “Willow, Lotus and Bright Moon in Autumn” all testify to his love for the landscape in Hangzhou.

    “Flowers and Birds” are major features of Liu Yong's art.He observes objects carefully, shows empathy, has objects as his targets of transference and forgets the difference between himself and the objects he observes. The flower-and-bird paintings of Liu Yong not only show the physical forms, shapes and principles of objects, but also “melt the feelings of the painter into the objects” to “blur the difference”. Swaying peony in the wind, sparrow under the broken lotus in the rain, and swallows chasing each other in cherry trees are all objects of his love.

    His talent is best reflected in the section of “Modern Water Ink”.He switches freely between tradition and modernity and even paints without using a brush. His water ink works displayed in this exhibition include “Dawn”, “Moon in the Water”, “Book Scroll”, and “Country”. He created these works purely by folding and ink spraying techniques and the works convey profound artistic conception that presents the charm of Song painting and deep human feelings.

    For nature, Liu Yong shows awe and curiosity, The section “Sketch and Study” embodies a principle of Chinese painting, “learning from nature”. This section also reflects the forthright and sincere nature of Liu Yong. He likes to study the nature of things, thinking that nature has its “law” like phyllotaxis and is in line with the aesthetics principle. He insists on observing flowers and birds using scientific research means. His brushwork works show his hard work. He sketches while traveling and has visited Huangshan Mountain, Lijiang River, Jiuzhaigou, Yungang Grottoes and other domestic attractions and once wandered alone in Venice for seven days. The moments when he was touched by nature and the quiet time are recorded in his “Traveling Diary of Watercolors”.