By Twisted Sifter
Born in Canton in 1929, Chinese artist Dong Hong-Oai passed away in 2004 at the age of 75. He left behind an incredible volume of work, using a style known as pictorialism to create incredible photographs that look like traditional Chinese paintings. Below you will find a small collection of his stunning artwork along with a brief biography on Dong Hong-Oai and additional information on the photographic style known as pictorialism.
Artwork and Photography by DON HONG-OAI
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Don Hong-Oai was born in 1929 in the city of Guangzhou in the Guangdong Province of China. He left China at the age of seven, after the sudden death of his parents. As the youngest of 24 siblings and half-siblings, Don was sent off to live in a Chinese community in Saigon, Vietnam. Later in his life he would occasionally return to visit China, but he never lived there again.
On his arrival in Saigon, Don was apprenticed to a photography studio run by ethnically Chinese immigrants. There he learned the fundamentals of photography. He also developed an affection for landscape photography, which he practiced on his time off using one of the studio’s cameras. Don remained an apprentice for a decade, after which he worked a series of odd jobs. In 1950, at the age of 21, he began studying at the Vietnam National Art University.
In 1979 a bloody border war broke out between the Socialist Republic of Vietnam and the People’s Republic of China. The Vietnamese government instituted a series of repressive policies that targeted ethnic Chinese living in the country. As a result of those policies, Don became one of the millions of “boat people” who fled Vietnam in the late 1970s and early 80s.
At the age of 50, speaking no English and not knowing anybody living in the U.S., Don arrived in San Francisco. He was even able to set up a small darkroom. By selling prints of his photographs at local street fairs, Don was able to make enough money to return to China periodically to shoot photographs. Most importantly, he was given the opportunity to study for a period of time under the tutelage of Long Chin-San in Taiwan.
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