Two Tang Horses

John Chin Young 容澤泉 (1909–1997) was a painter born in Honolulu, Hawaiʻi of Chinese immigrants. He began drawing at the age of eight, stimulated by Chinese calligraphy, which he learned in Chinese language school. Young had his first and only art lessons while a student at McKinley High School with Shirley Russell. Informed by the gestural abstraction of modern art, Young is known for his Zen-like depictions of the horses of the Chinese Tang Dynasty. This subtle yet dynamic watercolor is a stellar example of Young’s calligraphic horse paintings.
During his 60 years as a working artist, Young exhibited at the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, D.C., the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the San Francisco Museum of Art.