“Unearthing Light” With Miner Painter Hung Jui-Lin

A retrospective exhibition on Taiwanese artist Hung Jui-Lin, also referred to as the "miner painter", opened at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum.

TAIPEI, Taiwan — Hung Jui-Lin (1912–1996) holds an important position in the history of Taiwanese art. The last time when there was a largest-scale exhibition dedicated to the artist was back in 1997 — in memory of his death anniversary. 25 years later, this long-overdue retrospective exhibition of Hung Jui-Lin is on now view at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum (TFAM), thanks to a collection donation from the artist’s son in 2020.

At the entrance to the exhibition, Unearthing Light: Hung Jui-Lin, visitor comes to an arched opening in the mustard yellow wall. Like a miner who sets foot into the tunnel to access the underground ores, visitors walk into the exhibition through this inviting doorway that leads to the artistic world of Taiwan’s one and only miner painter: Hung Jui-Lin.

Entrance to the exhibition Unearthing Light at Taipei Fine Arts Museum

Enlightenment in Art: From Taiwan to Japan

Hung’s father was an outstanding painter who excelled in depicting plum blossoms, one of the “Four Gentlemen” in Chinese painting tradition. At the age of six, Hung started helping his father to prepare the ink, giving him an early exposure to the painting process.

By the time when he was eight years old, he enrolled in the Daojiang Private Charity School, where he created study sketches of works by Jean-François Millet and Michelangelo. Then, Hung studied at the Taihoku Institute of Western Painting, where he received artistic training from Ishikawa Kinichiro, a pioneer in promoting the education of modern western art in Taiwan.

Hung arrived in Japan in the 1930s and studied Western painting at the Imperial Fine Arts School (now Musashino Art University). While in Japan, Hung was deeply affected by the Proletarian Arts Movement that flourished in the 1920s.

While working part-time in his second year in Japan, Hung gained a deeper understanding of labourers. In 1933, he painted Japanese Slums, illustrating the living condition of those at the bottom of the society.

Market at Yamagata, 1937, Hung Jui-Lin

In 1937, Hung paid a visit to a friend in Tateoka in Yamagata Prefecture, a region famous for its heavy snow. During his stay, he painted Market at Yamagata, illustrating farmers who — despite having experienced years of starvation and poor harvest — persevered through adversity.

Their resilience deeply moved the artist. “When studying in Japan, what touched me the most was not the cherry blossoms, nor the rivers, but the labourers in extreme cold weather,” he said. Both a witness and observer, those experiences spurred Hung’s interest towards this often neglected echelon of the society.

The Mine: Where Hung Jui-Lin Called Home

Exalting the Miners, Hung Jui-Lin

The so-called “Mining Period” began in 1938 when Hung took on a job at a subdivision mine of the Ruifang №2 Mine managed by Ni Chiang-Huai, founder of the Taihoku Institute of Western Painting. In the following year, he married the daughter of the mine leader, and ended up raising his children there. Since then, the mine was his second home.

Unearthing Light showcases how Hung portrayed the livelihood of his fellow miners using a variety of medium, including sketches, watercolours, oil paintings, and even a poem written by the artist himself in homage to the miners. On display, there are two paintings from the series, Exalting the Miners, in which the process of pit mining has been weaved into an unspoken narrative like a comic strip.

Hung’s watercolour sketches of his fellow miners

Hung’s work created during the Mining Period is characterised by his expressive, rough brush strokes, with which he vividly captured the dynamism of the miners’ muscles, their deformed bodies, as well as their tiresome-looking faces powdered by the coal dust from the mine. He used dark colours and bold strokes to illustrate his subjects and their working condition underground, which is often lit up by a glimmer of light, as if saying that hope perseveres even in the darkest times.

The temperature in the mining pit could reach to as high as 36 degrees celsius. An anecdote recounts how Hung, when underground, used his sweat — instead of water — to dilute the watercolours while painting.

Taiwan Acacia incorporated into the exhibition design

Hung painted the miners for three and a half decades. “My painting is a miner’s diary, as well as my own reflection,” he once said. The artist probably never thought that this visual diary he had created has become a testimony to the heyday of Taiwan’s mining industry.

It’s worth to mention that, in this gallery that showcases the artist’s work from the Mining Period, real trees have been incorporated into the exhibition design. This is a reference to the Taiwan Acacia that was used as a structural support inside the underground coal mine to avoid it from collapsing.

Entrance to the gallery “Fruits and Spring Breeze of Life”

From Miners to Nude, Dark to Light

In 1964, Hung was invited to teach at the National Taiwan Academy of Arts (now National Taiwan University of Arts), where he encouraged his student to paint nude figure drawing.

In contrast to the rough, expressive brushstrokes used to illustrate the miners’ muscular physique, Hung’s depiction of female nude took on a different turn: the use of a much smoother and spontaneous curve, combined with the chiaroscuro shading that gives it volume, brings out the suppleness of the women’s skin.

In 1980, Hung immigrated to California and lived in a seaside house where he captured its breathtaking view with his paint brush. The beautiful sunlight and sunset glows are akin to the light at the end of the tunnel — a closing chapter to his creative endeavours that largely revolved around the days he had spent underground.

Colourful Clouds, 1982, Hung Jui-Lin

Cheng Li-chun, Former Minister of Culture of Taiwan, once said: “I hope that our next generation will know that, while France has Miller who painted the farmers, Taiwan has Hung Jui-Lin who painted the miners.” Thanks to Unearthing Light, Hung Jui-Lin’s contribution to shaping the development of Taiwanese art has been brought to light for the first time in the 21st century.

Unearthing Light: Hung Jui-Lin features an important selection of rare works by artist Hung Jui-Lin, many of which have not been shown to the public over the last three decades. The exhibition opened at Taipei Fine Arts Museum on March 19, 2022, and runs through August 14, 2022.