Sculpture

1980

Length:16.2 x Width:23.3 x Height:34.5 (cm)

Wang Shui-Ho (1925-2019, Taichung) was a self-taught and versatile artist whose practice spanned sculpture, oil painting, and a variety of other creative fields, including movie billboard painting, interior and architectural design, and typography. He studied sculpture with Chen Hsia-Yu (1917-2000) and won multiple first prizes in the sculpture category of the Taiwan Provincial Art Exhibition, earning exemption from preliminary review in 1960. In 1970, Wang was diagnosed with throat cancer, and following surgery that left him unable to speak, he relied on a voice prosthesis for communication. Several buildings in downtown Taichung still bear evidence of his involvement in their exterior design.
Loving Mother is a bronze cast of a clay-sculpted head, demonstrating Wang’s skill in capturing facial features and three-dimensional form. The surface retains the tactile traces of the artist’s fingers from the clay modeling stage, which emphasize the wrinkles and weathered expression of an elderly mother, conveying the passage of time and the trials of life. This highly personal approach not only showcases Wang’s sculptural technique but also reflects the aesthetic sensibilities he absorbed from Chen Hsia-Yu, shaped in turn by the academic tradition of the Tokyo School of Fine Arts in Japan.

Accession number:20160100002