Fred Fangyu Wang (; 1913 – October 6, 1997) was a

Chinese calligrapher Chinese calligraphy is the writing of Chinese characters as an art form, combining purely visual art and interpretation of the literary meaning. This type of expression has been widely practiced in China and has been generally held in high este ...

, art collector, and a Professor of

Chinese Chinese may refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people identified with China, through nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **Han Chinese, East Asian ethnic group native to China. **'' Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic ...

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...

and

Seton Hall University Seton Hall University (SHU) is a Private university, private Catholic Church, Catholic research university in South Orange, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1856 by then-Bishop James Roosevelt Bayley and named after his aunt, Saint Elizab ...

Biography

Wang was born in

Beijing Beijing, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Peking, is the capital city of China. With more than 22 million residents, it is the world's List of national capitals by population, most populous national capital city as well as ...

in 1913, and emigrated to

United States of America The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 contiguo ...

in 1945. Fred was an alumnus of the

Catholic University Catholic higher education includes universities, colleges, and other institutions of higher education privately run by the Catholic Church, typically by religious institutes. Those tied to the Holy See are specifically called pontifical univers ...

in Beijing and

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

in New York City. In the 1940s he worked with

Henry Courtenay Fenn Henry Courtenay Fenn, more commonly known as H. C. Fenn, (February 26, 1894 – July 1978) was an American sinologist and architect of Yale University's Chinese language program. Life H. C. Fenn was the son of the Reverend Dr. Courtenay Hughes ...

on Chinese grammar at the Institute of Far Eastern Languages at Yale. He taught Chinese language and literature between 1945 and 1965 at Yale. At

, he was the chairman of the department of Asian studies and founder and curator of the Wang Fangyu Collection of Asian Art. He was also part of the team which developed the first Chinese language teaching computer system. Several books and dictionaries on the Chinese language and calligraphy were written by him. Wang Fangyu was also a calligrapher in his own right, taking up the art later in life. His work has been shown in numerous venues including: E & J Frankel Gallery, 1980 (New York, NY),

Rijksmuseum Voor Volkenkunde Wereldmuseum Leiden (also known as Museum Volkenkunde) is a Rijksmuseum in the Netherlands located in the university city of Leiden. As of 2014, the museum, along with Wereldmuseum Amsterdam, in Amsterdam, and Wereldmuseum Rotterdam, together m ...

, 1981 (Leiden, Netherlands),

Asia Society The Asia Society is a 501(c)(3) organization that focuses on educating the world about Asia. It has several centers in the United States (Manhattan, Washington, D.C., Houston, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle) and around the world (Hong Ko ...

, 1984, (New York, NY),

University of Iowa The University of Iowa (U of I, UIowa, or Iowa) is a public university, public research university in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. Founded in 1847, it is the oldest and largest university in the state. The University of Iowa is organized int ...

, 1991, National Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, 1994 (Stockholm, Sweden) The Newark Museum, 2000 (Newark, New Jersey)

Duke University Duke University is a Private university, private research university in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity, North Carolina, Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1 ...

Art Museum, 2002 (Durham, North Carolina). His work is in the

Permanent Collection. Wang was also an avid collector of

Bada Shanren Zhu Da (), also known by his pen name Bada Shanren (), was a late-Ming and early-Qing dynasty Chinese painter, calligrapher, and poet. He was born in Nanchang, Jiangxi, in 1626, at during the Ming-Qing Transition. Zhu was mentally ill and disp ...

paintings and calligraphies. During his lifetime, he and his wife Sum Wai (沈慧) amassed the largest private collection of Bada Shanren's art. The Freer Gallery of Art later bought the entire collection from the couple's estate. When he died, he left behind relatives in mainland China, Taiwan, and the USA.

References

Works

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External links

Institute of Far Eastern Languages, Yale UniversityWalsh Gallery Collections - includes objects from the Wang Fangyu Collection of Asian ArtSeton Hall University Department of Archives and Special Collections
- Wang Fangyu archival materials on deposit here {{DEFAULTSORT:Wang, Fred Fangyu 1913 births 1997 deaths 20th-century Chinese calligraphers American calligraphers Artists from Beijing Yale University faculty Seton Hall University faculty Writers from Beijing 20th-century Chinese linguists Seton Hall University Chinese-American culture American art collectors