Huang Rong-can

In 1938, he studied at the Kunming National College of Arts, where he was inspired by the Lu Xun woodcut movement and ideas about the Chinese Revolution.

[2] Huang taught art at a junior high school in Guangxi, simultaneously organizing a group to study the woodcut technique.

[1] He was profoundly influenced by Lu Xun,[2] who, in the spirit of social realism, adapted Russian and German printmaking techniques to suit the circumstances in China.

He considered woodcuts to be “people’s art”, capable of expressing raw emotion through strong black and white lines, thus facilitating social change.

This approach to portraying suffering was revolutionary in Chinese art, which had previously adhered to Confucian and Daoist ideals of harmony in its depictions.

[1] Additionally, he was recruited in 1945 for a teaching position in Taiwan through the Ministry of Education examination process conducted by the Nationalist government under Chiang Kai-Shek from the 1920s to 1949.

[2] Following Lu Xun in taking inspiration from early twentieth century German expressionist prints, including those by Käthe Kollwitz, Huang captured the local life of the Taiwanese people in his work.

[4] In 1946, he became an art editor for the newspaper, Ren Min Dao Bao (People's Tribune) and was head of the cultural supplement, Nan Hong.

[3] He met some important Taiwanese writers and artists, included Wang Bai Yuan, Lee Shih-chiao, and Yang San-lang.

Hu Ko-wei enlisted a mainland-born artist named Liu Shih to begin the Fine Arts Study Group under this committee.

In this group there were such artists as Lee Chun-Shan (Li Chung-sheng), one of the influential pioneers of the modern art movement, as well as Wu Hao, Chu Te-chun and Hsia Yang.

[7] Two months later, he completed the secret The Horrifying Inspection woodcut, based on oral accounts of what happened in the first occurrence that triggered the 228 Incident.

From there, Huang donated the print to a Japanese friend, from where it found its way to its present destination in the collection of the Kanagawa Museum of Modern Art in Japan.

The Nationalist Government accused one of his prints of Orchid Island to be part of Communist Party research to plan the landing of their troops.

Fellow founder of the studio in Hankow Street, Lee Chun Shan began to discourage his students from further organisation of art associations or movements due to such political oppression, and soon after left Taipei.

[7] Huang is buried on a deserted hill in the Taipei Municipal Cemetery, Liuzhangli, with 206 other graves of people killed in the beginning of the White Terror.

[3] Although there were other members of the movement who had been to Taiwan and created realistic woodcuts depicting the everyday life, like Zhu Ming Gang, Huang's artworks went beyond this style of realism.