Yuqi Wang is a Chinese-American portrait painter born in China in 1958.
“In my portraits, I try to capture something spiritual about the people, their humanity, their interiors — but those are still not the right words I’m after to describe what I want to do as a portrait painter,” Wang says. “‘Dignity,’ that’s what I want to achieve with everyone who sits for me. Their dignity.”
He grew up during China’s Cultural Revolution and taught himself to draw as a way to protect his dignity. He studied at the Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts and the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing. He later immigrated to the United States, first settling in Chicago before moving to New York. He now lives and works in Brooklyn. His work has been collected by the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, Harvard Art Museum, and the China National Gallery.
He has won numerous awards, including the Grand Prize at the Portrait Society of America competition.
He also won Second Prize at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery’s Outwin Boochever competition. He is influenced by Rembrandt, the Pre-Raphaelites, and the Barbizon School. He discovered Western art through black-and-white images in old newspapers and textbooks. He believes art belongs to the personal religion of the painter. He finds emotional connection deep inside human nature without the barrier of race.
His subjects include Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and a French princess.
He has also painted portraits of transgender individuals and other notable figures. He has completed a magnificant self-portrait titled “Red Hook Fantasy,” which includes references to Dürer’s Melencolia I. He listens to Mahler, Wagner, and Bach while painting. He continues to explore the meaning of life and the human condition through his art. He is a master of portraiture who captures the dignity of his subjects.
He lives and works in Red Hook, Brooklyn. He continues to paint and exhibit his work.
