Wei Jingxian Sketchbook Collection

Author: Wei Jingxian
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2003-01-01
Features: Wei Jingxian was born in Pei County, Jiangsu, the hometown of Liu Bang, in 1938. He graduated from Nanjing Art Institute in 1963. Currently, he is a professor at Wenzhou Normal University and the director of the Wenzhou Portrait Embroidery Research Institute, as well as a member of the China Artists Association. With over 40 years of artistic experience, he has always been passionate about literature, theater, and poetry since his childhood. During his university years, he initially studied oil painting before switching to dyeing and weaving arts. After graduation, he was assigned to an embroidery factory to work as a design artist. During the Cultural Revolution, with no other options, he created and embroidered samples on his own, traveling across the country to sell goods. Since the cities he visited were all port cities where foreign ships docked, in addition to receiving orders, he also painted numerous watercolor landscapes. After starting his teaching career, watercolor and embroidery became his main focus. In addition to teaching watercolor painting, he began developing and researching traditional hair embroidery art in the 1970s. Building upon this traditional craft, he pioneered and innovated, focusing primarily on embroidering modern portraits. He has tirelessly pursued the path of combining painting and embroidery for several decades. His hair embroidery works have been exhibited as national gifts in the Netherlands Royal Palace, the Prime Minister's Office in Malaysia, the White House in the United States, Buckingham Palace in the UK, the Kremlin in Russia. In October 2000, his art of combining painting and embroidery was showcased at the United Nations Headquarters in New York. I have always preferred the challenges of uncharted paths over easy routes, willing to climb the rugged and winding trails that no one else has ventured. Over the past 40 years, despite the hardships of his artistic journey, he has found boundless beauty and endless joy. This collection of paintings and embroidery is one of the fruits of his artistic career. Though now past sixty, he still feels no sense of aging, whether threading a needle, wielding a brush, innovating, or reminiscing—his days are always filled with vigor and enthusiasm.