John Chin Young 容澤泉 (1909–1997) was a painter who was born in

Honolulu, Hawaii Honolulu (; ) is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Hawaii, which is in the Pacific Ocean. It is an unincorporated county seat of the consolidated City and County of Honolulu, situated along the southeast coast of the island o ...

on March 26, 1909. He was the son of Chinese immigrants and began drawing at the age of eight, stimulated by

Chinese calligraphy Chinese calligraphy is the writing of Chinese characters as an art form, combining purely visual art and interpretation of the literary meaning. This type of expression has been widely practiced in China and has been generally held in high est ...

, which he learned in Chinese language school. Young had his first and only art lessons while a student at

President William McKinley High School President William McKinley High School, more commonly referred to as McKinley High School, is a comprehensive public high school in the Honolulu District of the Hawaii State Department of Education. It serves grades nine through twelve. McKinley i ...

in Honolulu. Thereafter, his art was entirely self-taught. Young is best known for his Zen-like depictions of horses (such as the untitled watercolor), paintings of children (such as '' Children on Carousel''), and abstractions (such as ''

Tantalus Tantalus ( grc, Τάνταλος ) was a Greek mythological figure, most famous for his punishment in Tartarus: he was made to stand in a pool of water beneath a fruit tree with low branches, with the fruit ever eluding his grasp, and the wate ...

''). Over the years, he acquired an important collection of ancient Asian art, which he donated to the

Honolulu Museum of Art The Honolulu Museum of Art (formerly the Honolulu Academy of Arts) is an art museum in Honolulu, Hawaii. The museum is the largest of its kind in the state, and was founded in 1922 by Anna Rice Cooke. The museum has one of the largest single col ...

and the

University of Hawaii at Manoa A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, t ...

as the John Young Museum. John Chin Young died in 1997 at the age of 88. His daughter Debbie Young is also a painter residing in Hawaii. During his 60 years as a working artist, Young exhibited at the

Corcoran Gallery The Corcoran Gallery of Art was an art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, that is now the location of the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design, a part of the George Washington University. Overview The Corcoran School of the Arts & Design ...

in Washington, D.C., the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

and the

San Francisco Museum of Art The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is a modern art, modern and contemporary art museum located in San Francisco, California. A nonprofit organization, SFMOMA holds an internationally recognized collection of modern and contemporary a ...

. The

Art Institute of Chicago The Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago's Grant Park, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the world. Recognized for its curatorial efforts and popularity among visitors, the museum hosts approximately 1.5 mill ...

, the

Los Angeles County Museum of Art The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is an art museum located on Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile, Los Angeles, California, Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles. LACMA is on Museum Row, adjacent to the La Brea Tar Pits (George C. Pa ...

, and the Santa Barbara Museum of Art (California) are among the public collections holding paintings by John Chin Young.Honolulu Museum of Art, wall labels, ''Koolau Mountains'', 1983, accession 5168.1 and ''Heavy Sea'', 1940, accession 11753.1

References

* Forbes, David W., ''Encounters with Paradise: Views of Hawaii and its People, 1778-1941'', Honolulu Academy of Arts, 1992, 213-270. * Haar, Francis and Neogy, Prithwish, ''Artists of Hawaii: Nineteen Painters and Sculptors'', University of Hawaii Press, 1974, 144-150. * Hartwell, Patricia L. (editor), ''Retrospective 1967-1987'',

Hawaii State Foundation on Culture and the Arts The Hawaii State Foundation on Culture and the Arts was established by the Hawaii State Legislature in 1965 to "promote, perpetuate, preserve, and encourage culture and the arts, history and the humanities as central to the quality of life of the ...

, Honolulu, Hawaii, 1987, p. 58 * Metropolitan Museum of Art, ''American Painting Today'', Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1950. * Morse, Morse (ed.), ''Honolulu Printmakers'', Honolulu, HI, Honolulu Academy of Arts, 2003, pp. 33 & 42, * Papanikolas, Theresa and DeSoto Brown, ''Art Deco Hawai'i'', Honolulu, Honolulu Museum of Art, 2014, , p. 130 * Yim, Susan, ''John Young, The sketchbooks'', Honolulu, John Young Foundation in association with Outreach College, University of Hawaii at Manoa, 1998. * Yoshihara, Lisa A., ''Collective Visions, 1967-1997'',

, Honolulu, Hawaii, 1997, 63. * Young, John, ''John Young, A retrospective'', Honolulu, Hawaii, Honolulu Academy of Arts, 1996. * Young, John, Sketchbook in ''Bamboo Ridge: Journal of Hawai'i Literature and Arts'', Winter, 1994, 81-86.

Footnotes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Young, John Chin 1909 births 1997 deaths 20th-century American painters 20th-century American male artists American male painters Painters from Hawaii Artists from Honolulu American artists of Chinese descent Hawaii people of Chinese descent