Tag Archives: Chinese painting

08.06.24
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Peco, Peco, Where Will It All End?

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We now return to regularly scheduled programming:

Whither, Whence, or Howcome Peco Yeh?

If you’re a longtime reader of this blog, perhaps you will recall that in May 2019 I mentioned a lovely oil painting, a waterscape, that I had the good fortune to acquire more than fifty years ago, at a scandalously low price, directly from its source, Chinese painter Peco Yeh. In February 2023, I reposted the same piece, just as a remembrance.

My Peco Yeh painting.

Peco was a strange man—a sort of nebbish, to use a dated term—and I sometimes feel guilty about paying him so little for what is, in my eyes, a fine work of art. It’s too late to make amends, for Peco would be long since dead, but in a fine bit of poetic justice, this blog site has become—without conscious intention on my part—World Headquarters for the Retrospective Appreciation of Peco Yeh by Owners of His Scattered Canvases.

It came about in this way: In August 2023, six months after my repeat post displaying my Peco Yeh canvas, I got an email from Earline Dirks, who was in possession of a much different painting by Peco. Then Joshua Lowe of West Virginia chimed in with his own Peco canvas. And after several months’ silence, I heard from Jane Upchurch, who has a different work altogether.

Earline’s Peco Yeh painting.

Joshua’s Peco Yeh painting

Jane’s Peco Yeh painting.

Look up Peco Yeh, Dear Reader. I dare you. All you will find is a rather cryptic, 56-word thumbnail bio that bounces endlessly around the Internet, completely unattributed. It paints a rather romantic picture of the soft-spoken little man’s life and background, but who is to say whether it is true? 

What is indisputable is that Peco lived—I met him in person and have heard from others who did also—and painted a number of canvases. The more of his paintings I see, the more I am struck by the variety of his works. In style, in manner, in subject matter, and in quality, they seem to be all over the map. One might even suspect the name “Peco Yeh” got attrributed to several different artists, but I don’t think so. I think he was simply interested in different approaches at different times and was, in general, an enigma.

A number of his paintings are available at online art sites. And for better or worse, I seem to be the repository of a fair number of images by, and stories about, Peco Yeh from private persons who own some of his works.

So it seems that duty calls. Far be it from me to shirk.

The Latest Report

A couple of weeks ago I heard from Michael Tomczyk, who said, “I was dating a Taiwanese girl in 1972 who was a friend of Peco Yeh. He had a small gallery where I met him several times and selected and purchased these 3 paintings which are I think are some of his best.” 

Here are Michael’s paintings, so you can judge for yourself.

Michael also sent along the following poem, which he composed:


IN MEMORY OF PECO YEH

There once was an artist named Peco Yeh,

Who painted scenes in an extaordinary way;

He lived in Taipei and his art was well known,

He always painted using sepia tone.

The scenes he painted were classic Chinese;

When we view them today they put our spirits at ease.

–by Michael Tomczyk

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All I can say, as a sort of informal custodian of a Chinese artist’s memory, is, “Peco, where will you strike next?”

Thanks, Gentle Reader, for letting me get that off my chest.

NEXT WEEK: Something completely different.

Blessings, 

Larry F. Sommers

Your New Favorite Writer

05.07.24
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Peco Yeh: The Gift That Keeps On Giving

Fifty-six years ago, in the streets of Taipei, Taiwan, I purchased a work of art from its creator, the Chinese painter Peco Yeh.

The sordid details of that transaction are mentioned here.

Since then, several people have contacted me to declare themselves owners of other original Peco Yeh canvases.

The latest is Jane Upchurch, who emailed me: “In the early 1970s my (ex) husband was in the military and was stationed in Taipei. He had been to Chinese language school to learn Mandarin. We bought a Peco Yeh painting on the street which I still have in it’s original frame. It’s approximately 16” x 18”.  (It’s hard to see in the attached picture but the little girl is catching a bubble.)”

Jane attached a good photo of the canvas she owns.

Bubble Girl, by Peco Yeh. Courtesy of Jane Upchurch. 

Once again, we have a picture which hints at the multiplicity of styles and subject matter painted by Peco Yeh, the enigmatic twentieth-century artist. The girl is a rather standard renering of a Chinese child. The bubble she embraces is rendered with grace and finesse. We could call it a slice of life. 

Compare this not only with my canvas—a mystical expression of a boatman on a misty morning—but also with pictures provided by Earline Dirks and Joshua Lowe. 

Once again, we have a picture which hints at the multiplicity of styles and subject matter painted by Peco Yeh, the enigmatic twentieth-century artist. The girl is a rather standard renering of a Chinese child. The bubble she embraces is rendered with grace and finesse. We could call it a slice of life. 

Compare this not only with my canvas—a mystical expression of a boatman on a misty morning—but also with pictures provided by Earline Dirks and Joshua Lowe. 

Others who have contacted me and provided images of their Peco Yeh paintings include Earline Dirks and Joshua Lowe.

Chinese boy with lantern. Courtesy of Earline Dirks.

Street scene. Courtesy of Joshua Lowe.

If this keeps happening, this lowly blog may become the world’s leading collection of information about Peco Yeh.

Blessings,

Larry F. Sommers

Your New Favorite Writer

08.15.23
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Ars Gratia Artis

The young must be forgiven. 

There is no responsible alternative; they really don’t know better.

I believed, as a callow U.S. airman in 1967, that haggling was de rigueur in Asian cultures. To get the best price was the name of the game, and no holds were barred. It was normal and expected.

So when a soft little man stepped out on the sidewalk in Taipei and asked what I thought of the monochrome painting I was gazing at, I replied with sappy disdain. “I suppose it’s all right, if you like that sort of thing.”

It was a moody waterscape with a Chinese boatman sculling his craft between a larger boat and some timbers jutting from the river. A gray hill or mountain hovers vaguely in the background. One can feel a wisp of fog and hear the slip of water streaming along the strakes. 

This painting stood among flat Taiwan street scenes bristling with shop signs and telephone wires.

“Is the boat picture by the same artist who did these others?” I asked.

The little man hooked a thumb toward his puffy chest. “Me. I did them all.”

“Really? Because this one looks nothing like those.” 

His eyes gleamed, black agates behind their epicanthic folds. “I paint many different styles. Peco Yeh.” He shook my hand and gave me a card. 

We haggled a bit, and I walked away with the painting, framed, for about three American dollars—equivalent to maybe forty bucks today. The work was worth far more, by any rational scale. 

I gave the painting to my parents. It hung in their living room for decades. Later, it came back to me and now graces my wall. 

Peco Yeh, it turns out, was a painter of some note. An apocryphal biography from an unknown source on the Web puts an exotic gloss on his life:

“Peco Yeh is/was a Chinese man living in Taipei Taiwan during the 1970s. He came from Chengdu, China with the nationalists in 1947 with his mother. His mother was the mistress of the last court artist of the Qing Dynasty. When Empress Dowager Cixi was poisoned, the court artist went to Chengdu and took the mistress.”

Whether any of that is true, who can say? 

I do know that for three dollars more than half a century ago I acquired a painting by a true artist. My only excuse is that I was young. I didn’t know the difference between a hodgepodge of paint on canvas and a work of art.

The boatman painting has grown on me over the years. My own taste has developed, of course, but more to the point: Peco Yeh’s work stands the test of time.

There are others of his paintings out there in the world. You can find a few for sale on the Web at prices in the four-hundred-dollar range. If you look at them, you can see for yourself that what the artist told me is true: He did paint in different styles.

A few weeks ago came an email from a woman named Earline Dirks who buys and sells old paintings. She is in possession of a Peco Yeh canvas, much different from mine. She wrote me because she happened across my blog post of 28 May 2019, which mentions the boatman painting. 

The work Earline acquired shows two people, a young boy and an older person—perhaps a mother, grandmother, or servant—holding a Chinese lantern. The older person is kneeling, her face somewhat obscured. The boy’s face is clear, gazing intently into the lantern’s light. 

Are we seeing a young Peco? Is this a memory of his own childhood? 

Earline was kind enough to share the image with me, so I share it with you.

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Recently I mentioned my correspondence with Mac McMorrow about Pan Am’s Anzac Clipper, which my Uncle Ed flew into Hilo harbor on December 7, 1941—where they encountered, in an official capacity, Mac’s father, the chief public health officer on the Big Island in those days.

First Mac, now Earline. 

Isn’t it wonderful the acquaintances one can make by blogging?

Blessings,

Larry F. Sommers

Your New Favorite Writer