National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts (NTMoFA) will hold an exhibition titled "Reality through the Paintbrush– Art Exhibition in Commemoration of Li Mei-Shu's 120th Posthumous Birthday" until Mar. 13, 2023. In collaboration with Li Mei-shu Memorial Gallery and Li Mei-Shu Cultural and Educational Foundation, the exhibition is curated by Hsueh Yen-ling (薛燕玲) with an aim to highlight Li’s achievement in Taiwanese art history.
Hsueh said it took a year to select the exhibits from more than 1000 works and documents. The selected works, which present the best of Li's life, are categorized under six subthemes to present and explore the artist's style of art, characteristics and creative content. The six subthemes include "Impressions of Sann-kak-íng," "Radiant Glories," "Masterminding the Restoration of Qingshui Zushi Temple," "Documenting Moments in Daily Life," and "Lineage and Friendship, Expansive Archive."
NTMoFA pointed out Li was a diligent and prolific artist who studied and mimicked the works of renowned western artists when he was young and accumulated thousands of paintings, drafts, and documents. To mark the 120th posthumous birthday of Li, the exhibition is organized to present and revisit the paintings that he created throughout his life that reflected the authentic aspects of Taiwan.
From December 17 to March 12, 2023, "Reality through the Paintbrush - Art Exhibition in Commemoration of Li Mei-Shu's 120th Posthumous Birthday" will display more than a hundred works of art and documents dedicated to Li Mei-Shu.
Li Mei-Shu upheld his beliefs and principles throughout his life and insisted on capturing the native land and people of Taiwan through the Realist style. He studied abroad in Japan in 1928. The next year, he was admitted to the Western Painting Program, Tokyo Fine Arts School (now Department of Fine Arts, Tokyo University of the Arts), where he was instructed by Pleinairist painters like Nagahara Kotaro, Kobayashi Mango, and Okada Saburosuke, laying a solid foundation for his later Realist style.