Seong MoyCourt of Solitude Chinese American Modernist Abstract Color Woodcut

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Printed on French Arches paper. Hand signed and numbered 4/35 Artist's Proof

Seong Moy was born in Canton on April … Read more Printed on French Arches paper. Hand signed and numbered 4/35 Artist's Proof

Seong Moy was born in Canton on April 12, 1921 but he immigrated to the United States in 1931, settling with his family in St. Paul, Minnesota. Moy began his art studies as a teenager at the WPA Federal Art Project. He continued his art education at the St. Paul School of Art under Cameron Booth, and the WPA Graphic Workshop at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, MN.

In 1941, he was awarded a scholarship to the Art Students League in New York where he studied with Vaclav Vytlacil and that same year he studied at the Hofmann School with Hans Hofmann. Moy’s education was supplemented by his visits to museums, his favorites where the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art, and galleries, where he said you could go to five galleries and see five completely different styles of work. The artists who were his strongest influences at this time included Matisse, Picasso, Bonnard, and Miro. With each of these artists he admired a different aspect of their work, Matisse’s use of color, Miro’s imagery, and Picasso for his controversy, his surprising innovations and his every shifting styles.

In the fall of 1942 Moy enlisted as a serviceman, where he was trained in technical photography and worked mainly as a reconnaissance and aerial photographer.Later in 1941, Moy enlisted in the Air Force and put his art education on hold. He served in the 14th Air Force, the "Flying Tigers," in the China-India-Burma Theater where he worked as an aerial reconnaissance photographer in China and Southeast Asia. After the war, he returned to New York with his new wife, Sui Yung. He returned to the Art Students League on the G.I. Bill and re-established his relationship with Cameron Booth, who was now teaching in New York. Although Mr. Moy was primarily a painter during the post-wars years, he began making prints when he received a fellowship to work at Stanley William Hayter's graphic art workshop, Atelier 17, which had moved to New York in 1940 after its founding in Paris in 1927. The workshop was a center for the development of new techniques and attitudes towards printmaking.

Moy began his teaching career in 1951 with painting classes at the University of Minnesota. Over the years he taught part time at various universities and colleges, including Smith College, Vassar College, Cooper Union, the Pratt Graphic Center and the Art Students League.

Following the lead of Hans Hofmann, Moy opened his summer school in Provincetown in 1954 and taught painting, drawing and printmaking for twenty years. He won a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1955 and became professor of art at the City College in New York. Moy’s work has been included in numerous solo and group exhibitions and is held in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum, the Whitney Museum of American Art, Brooklyn Museum and the New York Public Library.Education:
Saint Paul School of Minneapolis
Art Students League, studies with Vaclav Vytlacil
Hans Hofmann School, 1941-42

Awards:
Fellowships, William Hayter’s Atelier 17, 1948-1950
Whitney Fellowship, 1950-51
Guggenheim Grant, 1955-56
Minneapolis Institute Annual Prize
Philadelphia Print Club Annual Prize
American Federation of the Arts Commission, 1965
Emily Lowe Award, Audubon Artists Annual, 1967
Society of American Graphic Artists Award, 1967

Teaching Appointments:
University of Minnesota, 1950
Indiana University, 1952-54
Smith College, 1954-55
Vassar College, 1955
Cooper Union
Pratt Graphic Center
Columbia University
Art Students League
City College of New York
Seong Moy School of Painting and Graphic Arts, Provincetown

Selected Exhibitions:
American Painting, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1951
University of Illinois Biennials
Carnegie International, 1955
Whitney Museum Annual of Sculpture and Graphics, 1966-67
Hacker Gallery, 1951 (solo)
Esther Robles Gallery (solo)
Everston Museum, Syracuse, NY (solo)
Kyoto Yamada Gallery, Japan (solo)

Public Collections:
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Brooklyn Museum
New York Public Library
Pennsylvania Academy
Library of Congress
Smithsonian Institution
Worcester Art Museum
Brooks Museum of Memphis
Indiana University
Baltimore Museum
University of Minnesota
Smith College
Whitney Museum of American Art
The Woodward Foundation See less