Mau-Kun Yim
Taiwan/Taipei
YIM Mau-Kun was born in Changde, Hunan, and graduated from the Stage Design Department of the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts in China. He later moved to Hong Kong and then to Taiwan in 1987, where he held his first solo exhibition at Apollo Art Gallery. During this exhibition, he demonstrated his portrait painting skills on-site, impressing with his refined and precise brushwork, detailed depictions, and lifelike expressions. This garnered significant media coverage and widespread acclaim. Notable figures such as Vice President LEE Teng-Hui, Minister of Economic Affairs CHAO Yao-Tung, Minister of Education LEE Huan, and writer LEE Ao commissioned him for portrait paintings. YIM Mau-Kun's portrait of Sun Yat-sen still hangs in the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall in Taipei.
Due to his unique oil painting style, YIM Mau-Kun is regarded as an important inheritor of the Russian Repin School in Taiwan. Demonstrating and teaching at Apollo Art Gallery opened the door to his career as a professional painter and art educator. Besides teaching in his own studio, he has also served as a guest professor at universities in Taiwan and mainland China. His published painting instruction books have been translated into several languages. He has held solo exhibitions at the Hong Kong Arts Centre (1985), the Kaohsiung City Cultural Center (2000), and the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall in Taipei (2023). YIM Mau-Kun is currently a guest professor at Hunan Normal University and serves as a respected model for many art students.
In March 2024, YIM Mau-Kun will hold another solo exhibition at Apollo Art Gallery. At Art Taipei, the gallery plans to showcase his oil portraits and landscape paintings.