LUIS CHAN (CHEN FUSHAN, 1905-1995)

Born in Panama and moved to Hong Kong in 1910, Luis Chan spent his early days working as a typist in a law firm and designing fonts for a ferry boat company. Chan was a self-taught artist who painted in his spare time and received art education through a correspondence course from the Press Art School in London. Chan once mentioned in an interview that he was captivated by the television and would stay up at night watching it before starting to paint. The advent of colour television in the 1960s and the 1970s and early Hollywood motion pictures such as Wizard of Oz being available on television brought great inspiration and countless wild imaginations to Luis Chan. His paintings are also known for their fantastic colours and are teeming with childlike whimsy.