Name: 顏振發
Date of Birth: May 1, 1953
Place of Birth: Xiaying District, Tainan City
Did You Know…?
Yan Jhen-fa (顏振發) has seldom met any movie stars, yet he has brought to life many with his brushes, so many in fact that he can barely remember the exact number. Over the past few decades, it has become a routine for Yan to carry small images and five buckets of paint to the sidewalk across the street from the Chuan Mei Theater in Tainan City to paint film posters.
In the days when digital printing technology was still in the early stages of development, the best way for film companies to promote their films was to hire an artist with superb painting skills to paint posters for the films. Nowadays, Yan Jhen-fa (顏振發) is one of the last practitioners of movie poster painting in Taiwan.
Yan has found delight in painting since childhood. At elementary school, he participated in a painting competition and came out third place. A relative, who saw his vivid paintings, decided to recommend him to take an apprenticeship under awards winning movie poster artist Chen Feng-yong (陳峰永).
Yan began his apprenticeship at the age of 18, and he has spent most of his life painting movie posters. Yan remarked that when he first began learning to paint movie posters, his old-fashioned father strongly opposed it, but he refused to give up. He was able to paint quickly, and in the meantime, to capture the essence of film posters.
In the heyday of such posters in the 1970s, he could paint up to 200 huge movie posters every month, making him the most productive film poster painter in Taiwan.
As omnipresent digital printing and flashy electronic signage began taking over, hand-painted signs and posters have largely fallen out of favor. Consequently, Yan has fallen into economic distress. Fortunately, he got complete and enthusiastic support from the Chuan Mei Theater in Tainan City, as the theater owner insisted to place hand-made movie posters and to keep the traditional craft.
Yan makes all the posters for Chuan Mei Theater on his own, from sketching to hanging. Each of the posters is assembled from six three-foot-square canvases. He painted on the assembled huge canvases of the size nearly covering the front of the building.
Compared to digital print, hand-painted movie posters have vivid brush strokes and a certain charm which brings the characters alive, Yan remarked, adding that especially when it comes to drawing characters and facial features, it also requires more attention.
Out of his many works, Yan is most proud and impressed of his poster for "The Deadly Duo (雙俠)," not only that martial art (wuxia) films is his favorite type of film genre, but that the size of the poster is impressive. With the size equivalent to the height of a three-story building, the poster was painted on an assembled canvases made of more than 20 three-foot-square canvases.
Yan's focused look when working on the poster for "Zootopia" caught the eye of a Reddit user, who posted a link on the site showcasing this veteran painter's superlative professional capabilities. Among the users of the site, who hail from all around the world, the sight of this all-but-disappeared art form and a man so skilled in and dedicated to it inspired much discussion and enthusiasm.
Italian fashion brand Gucci also collaborated with Yan in 2018 to create the world's sixth Gucci Art Wall on Yongkang Street in Taipei City, Taiwan. When the sixth Gucci Art Wall was unveiled, Yan’s work made it into the international media. So exquisite was the final painting work that even the original artist, Alex Merry, voiced his effusive praise of it.
In 2019, at the invitation of the record company, Master Yan painted a massive retro replica of the cover of Coldplay's new album "Everyday Life" on a wall in Taipei's Ximending Film Street, and his skillful work created another must-post site for young social media mavens.
With the Internet and streaming increasingly impacting the film industry, the owner of Chuan Mei Theater has expressed concern that Yan's livelihood will be affected. He suggested that Yan could start teaching and take on apprentices. Getting aware of the environment especially after a fellow poster painter called it quits a few years ago and considering his declining eyesight, he began to worry that the tradition of hand-painted posters might be lost.
Thus, after nearly 50 of painting posters, Yan began to cultivate successors and keep this traditional craft alive. In 2013, he set up his own hand-painted movie posters class. It received a surprisingly warm welcome, with hundreds of students enrolling over the years since, even attracting students and tourists from Japan, Hong Kong, and Singapore.
Yan Jhen-fa has painted all his life, and this has caused serious damage to his eyesight. Several years ago, doctors found that his retinas had been severely damaged, and while they were able to save his left eye, his right eye was left almost completely blind. Nevertheless, Yan is determined to go on painting until he can no longer see at all.