Eddie Chau delighted with stunning and awesome artistic panoramas
Sketching Land and People the Drawings of Eddie Chau
Victoria Harbour Panorama from Jardine’s Lookout
Beautifully picturesque Hong Kong
Countless hikers along the trails of Hong Kong have paused to admire a view, snap a selfie, or take in a picturesque scene of fishing boats by the side of the harbour. Only Eddie Chau (1945-2020) took these sights and transformed them into stunning panoramas, sketched in pen and ink, felt-tip pen, or watercolour, beautifully composed and rendered with extraordinary detail.
Untitled, 1966, Watercolour, Eddie Chau
Eddie Chau is thus rightly celebrated for his Hong Kong panoramas. However, his earlier works, from his youth in Indonesia and his young adulthood in Guangdong, were unavailable to the public during his lifetime.
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Now, for the first time, a new exhibition at the University Museum and Art Gallery, The University of Hong Kong (UMAG), Sketching His Land and People: The Drawings of Eddie Chau, traces the development of Chau’s work through the three major phases of his life: in Indonesia, in Guangdong, and in Hong Kong.
Untitled, 2001, Felt pen, Eddie Chau
Chau was born to a Chinese family in Bandung, Indonesia, and his earliest work brings to vibrant life many colourful scenes of rural farms, villages, and houses.
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Painted in confident, precise watercolours, they document a landscape familiar to anyone who has visited the Southeast Asian countryside.
Gunung Burangrang,1964, Eddie Chau
At the same time, they prefigure the artist’s intense interest in nature and demonstrate his early talent for composition.
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Professor Florian Knothe, Director of UMAG as well as Director of the Museum Studies Programme at the University of Hong Kong, curated the exhibition with an archival lens, with the particular aim of bringing together Chau’s early works and his Hong Kong pieces.
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“The idea was to select topics throughout the three time periods of his life. The first two are literally unknown,” Knothe explains.
At School, 1977, Felt Pen, Eddie Chau
The exhibition, made possible by a generous gift from Chau’s family to UMAG, marks the first time his early works have been exhibited outside the artist’s home.
Self-taught Eddie Chau
“It didn’t hold him back,” comments Professor Knothe. “Some of the compositions are very fine.”
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Although he trained with a schoolteacher artist in his youth and later received artistic mentoring from the painter Jiang Yudi, Eddie Chau was mainly self-taught.
Studio, 1977, Felt pen, Eddie Chau
He, therefore, maintained his own unique style during the next phase of his life in Guangdong, even as the Lingnan school of painting thrived there in parallel.
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However, practical considerations meant that the works from this second phase of Chau’s life differ markedly from the ones he created as a youngster in Indonesia.
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Chau arrived in Guangdong at the start of the Cultural Revolution and soon found himself living on a farm with limited access to art materials.
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While some of the subject matter he sketched during this time is similar to that of his earlier life, almost all of the works are black and white – drawn in pen and ink or felt-tip pen.
Black and white in pen and ink
Chau’s documentary style during this phase of his life is revealed in his only surviving portraits. He is not known as a portrait artist.
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But these lovingly rendered pictures of his friends, along with those in his sketchbooks, show his enormous ability in this area.
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Eddie Chau arrived in Hong Kong in 1992, and it was from this era that his best-known work began.
Lei Yue Mun, 2018, Felt Pen, Eddie Chau
As an avid hiker, he stopped frequently to make sketches of what he saw, whether it was along the coast, in the New Territories, Lei Yue Mun, Sam Mun Tsai, or Yuen Long.
Sam Mun Tsai, New Territories, Not dated, Felt pen, Eddie Chau
Regular hikers will recognise and enjoy Chau’s two contrasting paintings of Hong Kong’s iconic Bride’s Pool, one delicate and precise, the other rougher, with broader strokes.
Bride’s Pool, Tai Po, 2014, Felt pen, Eddie Chau
These two intense works are displayed alone in the exhibition, allowing the viewer to appreciate the intensity of light, dark, and the depth of detail.
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Alongside his grand panoramas, he also produced hundreds of sketches and many detailed works of intimate, focused scenes in Hong Kong.
Hong Kong Park, 2012, Felt pen, Eddie Chau
These range from modern buildings to dilapidated shacks, from carefully composed but impressionistic natural scenes to incredibly detailed tree portraits of Hong Kong’s banyans, camphor and cinnamon trees.
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Professor Knothe refers to these as Chau’s personal interest pieces. He highlights the incredible composition in Chau’s drawing of a lotus pond, for example, and his unexpected use of felt-tip pens and correction fluid to achieve the desired effects of light, shade and contrast.
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This is especially evident in Chau’s many tree portraits. At the same time, some of these personal interest works hearken back to Chau’s Indonesian paintings, lively watercolours of rural communities.
Untitled, 2014, Felt pen, Eddie Chau
On the upper level of UMAG’s main gallery, Chau’s famous Hong Kong panoramas are displayed in the round.
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The sweeping 2023 Victoria Harbour Panorama is accompanied by a preliminary sketch that gives a glimpse into the artist’s process – how he mapped out his panoramas before embarking on the detailed drawings.
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A remarkable element of Chau’s panoramas is the careful framing and perspective of each view.
Sai Kung Panorama, 2005, Eddie Chau
“Some views incorporate focused elements like trees. And some panoramas, such as Hong Kong Park are from the park up, not The Peak down,” says Professor Knothe. “We see Hong Kong from every direction, from Lion Rock, from Tin Shui Wai.”
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Two unusual perspectives, rendered in watercolour, depict Sai Kung and Hong Kong International Airport. These form the centre piece of the exhibition.
Hong Kong International Airport, 2005, Mixed media, Eddie Chau
Chau also produced prints of some of his most popular works, including A View from Lion Rock.
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One of these is included in the exhibition and includes the artist’s own retouching.
An unexpected legacy of the Hong Kong works is their function as a record of Hong Kong’s transformation during the 1990s, 2000s and 2010s.
A View from Lion Rock, 2006, Eddie Chau
“In hindsight, this is a big study of a Hong Kong that already looks a bit different now,” says Professor Knothe. “It is documenting Hong Kong, for example taking a rural view of the Northern Metropolis before it’s gone.
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There are also panoramas of places that are not particularly well-travelled.”
The exhibit is accompanied by a book published by the UMAG imprint MCCM Creations, which showcases both his mainstream works as well as the interiors of Chau’s many sketchbooks.
Lamma Island, 2012, Felt pen, Eddie Chau
The hundreds of drawings and paintings in these sketchbooks are mostly complete works in their own right and are a testament to the intensity of Chau’s desire to faithfully portray the beauty of what he observed all over Hong Kong.
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The book is a must-have gift for any departing resident and an excellent complement to the exhibition.
“My goal was not to make the exhibition the same as the book – the latter is more refined, while the exhibition is more archival,” explains Prof. Knothe.
Sketching His Land and People: The Drawings of Eddie Chau
It is difficult to imagine what artist might succeed Eddie Chau, who passed away in 2020. Perhaps his unique life story gave him a unique perspective.
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But it is also possible that his extraordinary works will inspire certain hikers around Hong Kong to pause, put down the selfie stick, and take up a sketchbook.
Text Jan Lee / Images Courtesy of the University Museum and Art Gallery, The University of Hong Kong
