Tongson Wesley

Chinese

1957

2012-07-16

A solo exhibition of Wesley Tongson’s paintings, “Mountains of Heaven-Modern Chinese Paintings by Tong Ka Wai” was held at the Pacific Asia Museum in 1993. The exhibition at PAM was the first exhibition of Tongson’s work in a US museum. Tongson studied painting in Hong Kong and Canada. He explored and taught himself splash ink painting, a technique that originated in 8th century China and was something for which he became best known. The ink painting is an example of Tongson’s later work focused on finger painting. He was fascinated with mountain landscapes and considered them to be the most difficult and most important in Chinese painting. He often referred to himself as “Mountainscape Teacher” and in his later years signed his work “Mountain Taoist.”