Two paintings by renowned painter Yang San-lang (楊三郎) that had been kept in storage for about six decades and nearly discarded by National Taiwan University’s department of forestry and resource conservation are to see the light of day after they were salvaged and restored.
Yang, born in 1907, is regarded as a national treasure for his contributions to the establishment and development of Taiwanese art. He died in 1995.
Department head Yuan Hsiao-wei (袁孝維) said Yang painted the two pictures, titled Landscape I and Landscape II, 58 years ago at the behest of Tso Mao-hsiung (鄒茂雄), an alumnus, to mark the inauguration of the department’s research building.
Photo: Wu Po-hsuan, Taipei Times
Due to Tso’s background as a former student, he had access to the Xitou Forest in Nantou County and took Yang there, where he painted the pieces, Yuan said, adding that Yang agreed to let the department purchase the two paintings in 1958 for a small fee.
However, the paintings were put in a storage room while the office was being decorated, and when Tso found out about it, he reportedly said: “If you do not cherish the paintings, I will buy them back for NT$2 million” (US$62,519 at today’s exchange rate).
The paintings were put on display again, but they sustained serious damage when leaks occurred at the office, as they were not treated with water repellent, Yuan said.
In addition, an employee left a fingernail mark in one of the paintings, she said.
“About 20 years ago, department staff tried to dump the paintings into a garbage truck, but couldn’t because the frames were too big,” she added.
Yuan said that in 2013, she thought about having the paintings restored and had them examined, but an appraisal declared that they were counterfeits.
To verify the paintings’ authenticity, she requested the help of Taipei National University of the Arts professor emeritus Lin Pao-yao (林保堯) and InSian Gallery director Ou Hsien-cheng (歐賢政), with whom Yang had a close working relationship.
The experts declared the paintings to be authentic, Yuan said.
The department then began to raise funds to restore the paintings, Yuan said.
The paintings are to be displayed at the department building so that the public can appreciate Taiwan’s rustic scenery, she said.
There are no more than 30 paintings by Yang circulating on the market, Ou said, adding that a well-preserved piece signed by Yang can fetch about NT$10 million.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching