Where Have the Musician and His Audience Gone?

By Wan Qingli’ (1945-2017)

(“I have used painting and calligraphy as a means to escape temporarily from reality, to stroll through the mountains and forests in my dreamland, to show my respect for different people at different times and places, and to set free melancholy that is momentarily irrepressible.”)

I am by far the largest and most modern work of art to grace the Front Gallery wall of The Maridon Museum. Our founder, Mary Hulton Phillips, had an appreciation for talent and humor. She decided I was just the best combination of these two qualities to complement, the otherwise more serene, objects in this gallery.

My creator, Wan Qingli, could be thought of as a legend in his own time. Born in 1945, in Beijing, he graduated from the Central Academy of Fine Arts in 1968 and, through the years, became a renowned artist and art historian. He studied painting with other well-known artists, won prizes for painting, became a member of China Artist Association, presented solo shows, earned his MA and PhD degrees at the University of Hong Kong, taught in the University of Hong Kong, studied modern artat the City University in New York. E&J Frankel Ltd. recognized Qinglis’ exceptional qualities and arranged for his first one-man show in the United States in May 1985.

Interestingly, Edith Frankel was contacted in 2002 to curate a new museum being constructed in Butler, PA., The Maridon Museum. Thus, it was Qingli’s meeting with the Frankels and Frankel’s meeting with Mary H. Phillips, that forged our esteemed place in the Front Gallery of this wonderful museum filled with stories, history, laughter, and beauty.