Ye Qianyu

Ye Qianyu (or Yeh Ch'ien-yü; 31 March 1907 – 5 May 1995) was a Chinese painter and pioneering manhua artist.

Ye Qianyu was born Ye Lunqi (葉綸綺) in Tonglu county, Zhejiang province in 1907.

Although he loved to paint since childhood, he had neither the money nor the opportunity to seek professional training, forcing him to teach himself how to paint.

At age 18 Ye moved to Shanghai, where he found work at a small, short-lived journal Sanri Huabao (Three Day Pictorial).

The journal shut down when Chiang Kai-shek's Northern Expedition army reached Shanghai in April 1927.

Out of work, Ye Qianyu, then 20 years old, together with fellow cartoonists Huang Wennong and Lu Shaofei released a publication dedicated to manhua, called Shanghai Manhua (or Shanghai Sketch).

The first effort looked like a propaganda poster and was a failure.

Undeterred, the original three, joined by eight more artists including Zhang Guangyu, Ding Song, and Wang Dunqing, formed the Shanghai Sketch Society (also translated as Shanghai Cartoon Association) in the autumn of 1927.

It was China's first association dedicated to manhua, and its debut was a major event in the history of Chinese comics.

In 1928, he cofounded Shanghai Manhua, one of the earliest and most influential manhua magazines, and created Mr. Wang, one of China's most famous comic strips.

Ye was also a master of traditional Chinese painting and served as the head of the Department of Chinese Painting of the China Central Academy of Fine Arts.

During the Cultural Revolution he was persecuted and imprisoned for seven years.

Ye was married three times.

His first two marriages, to Luo Caiyun and dancer Dai Ailian, ended in divorce.

His third marriage, to movie star Wang Renmei, lasted more than 30 years until Wang's death.

Under the leadership of Zhang Guangyu, who recruited the wealthy poet Shao Xunmei as a sponsor, the association successfully relaunched the Shanghai Manhua on 21 April 1928.

Ye drew several covers for the magazine and the back page of the publication carried his comic strip, Mr. Wang.

Inspired by the American strip Bringing Up Father and portraying the daily life of the middle and lower classes of Shanghai, Mr. Wang became one of China's most famous cartoons, eventually being made into 11 films in the 1930s and 40s.

In June 1930 Shanghai Manhua was merged into Modern Miscelleny (or Modern Pictorial, 时代画报), of which Ye became an editor while continuing his Mr. Wang series.

In September 1936, Ye Qianyu, Lu Shaofei, and Zhang Guangyu organized the First National Cartoon Exhibition in Shanghai.

It displayed over 600 cartoons from all over the country.

After the overwhelming success of the exhibition, the artists formed the National Association of Chinese Cartoonists in the spring of 1937.

The blossoming movement, however, was brought to a halt by the Japanese invasion a few months later.

When Japan invaded China and occupied Shanghai in 1937, Ye Qianyu, together with a group of fellow Shanghai cartoonists, formed the "National Salvation Cartoon Propaganda Corps", which included well-known artists Zhang Leping, Lu Zhixiang, Te Wei, and Hu Kao.

Ye's lover, Liang Baibo, was the only female member.

Funded by the Kuomintang government, the corps left Shanghai for the interior to spread anti-Japanese propaganda.

They first went to Wuhan, but were forced to leave when that city fell at the end of 1938.

They then travelled to Changsha, Guilin, and eventually to the wartime capital Chongqing.

They published 15 issues of Resistance Cartoons before the government discontinued funding.

Ye went to Hong Kong prior to its fall to the Japanese in December 1941, and traveled through Guizhou, Guangxi, and Vietnam.

In 1943 he temporarily worked for the US General Joseph Stilwell as a war correspondent in India.

Throughout his travels he drew many sketches of wartime scenes, including a series entitled Escape from Hong Kong.

After the surrender of Japan in 1945, Ye Qianyu went to the United States, where he held a series of exhibitions to show and sell his artworks.

In 1947, Ye became a professor at the Beiping (Beijing) Art Academy.

After the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, he remained at the academy, which was transformed into the China Central Academy of Fine Arts.

He was also elected vice-chairman of the China Artists Association.

He painted prolifically in the 1950s, including such representative works as Indian Dancing, Autumn of the Summer River, and The Liberation of Beiping.

In 1954, he was appointed head of the Chinese Painting Department of the academy.

When the Cultural Revolution began in 1966, Ye Qianyu was accused of being a Kuomintang (KMT) agent for having drawn propaganda paintings and cartoons for the KMT government during the Japanese invasion.

The Red Guards labeled him as a KMT "Major General" because he was better paid than a real general.