Situ Qi(1907 – 1997)
with the courtesy name Cangcheng, was a native of Kaiping in Guangdong Province. As a child, he was interested in the six principles of Chinese paintings and later entered the Guangzhou Municipal Fine Arts School, where he studied Western painting techniques. Following this, he attended the Zhonghua Art University in Shanghai, where his work ‘The Artist’s Wife’ was well received. He returned to Guangzhou in 1928 and successively founded the Liefeng Art School and the Venice Art Research Institute. Meanwhile, he continued to create Chinese paintings and was recruited by Gao Jianfu to join the Chunshui Painting Academy. Situ Qi participated in the first and second editions of the National Exhibition of Fine Arts, during which Guangzhou Municipal Museum acquired his oil painting, ‘The Sorrow of Youth’.
Situ Qi’s works covered an array of subject matters including figures, flowers, birds and landscapes. He particularly excelled at painting morning glory flowers (qianniu in Chinese) and kapok flowers (hongmian in Chinese), earning him the monikers ‘Situ Qianniu’ and ‘Situ Hongmian’. He moved to Macao during the War of Resistance against Japan and decided to settle in the city in the 1950s. In addition to engaging in art and education, he founded the Yu Un Chinese Calligraphers and Painters Association of Macao with fellows including Deng Fen and Luo Shuzhong. Situ Qi moved to Hong Kong in 1961 and emigrated to Canada in 1976. He passed away in Vancouver in 1997.