Li Yuan-chia was born into a peasant family in Xu village, southern China in 1929. He entered the Department of Art Education at Taipei Normal College for Teacher Training in 1951, and became known as one of the Eight Great Outlaws - the first abstract artists of Taiwan, participating in the revolutionary Ton Fan group. Li left the repressive conditions of Taiwan and settled first in Italy and then in London, where he held a number of exhibitions at the Lisson Gallery. He subsequently moved to Banks (now in Cumbria), where he founded the LYC Museum and Art Gallery, a community centre for learning and creativity.
Artist, poet, curator and archivist, Li Yuan-chia was born into a peasant family in Xu village, located near Mount Lu in Guangxi province, southern China on 6 April 1929. In 1951 he entered the Department of Art Education at Taipei Normal College for Teacher Training in Taiwan. Dissatisfied with the conservative and academic training in Chinese art and aesthetics prevailing in the school, Li studied with the artist and independent teacher Li Chung-sheng, who exerted a liberating influence on many young Taiwanese artists. Having studied in Japan, Li Chung-sheng was versed in European modernism as well as traditional Chinese painting. Li Yuan-chia made his first abstract work in 1952. In 1956, alongside other ex-students of Li Chung-sheng he co-founded the revolutionary Ton Fan Group (also referred to as Dongfang Huahui, Eastern Painting Society, Eastern Art Group and Orient Movement). Ton Fan produced what were thought to be the first abstract works in modern China. Li was later known as one of the Eight Great Outlaws – the first abstract artists of Taiwan.
His art reflected his interested in mathematics, Buddhist philosophy and ancient cave painting, as well as his unique vision of space and a system of signs, which continued to evolve as Li left the repressive conditions of Taiwan and settled in Bologna, Italy in 1962, following Hsiao Chin’s invitation to artists from Ton Fan to join him there. In Italy he produced his series of folding painting books, and numerous works in which he evolved the pictorial form of the tiny Point, or Points (Li Yuan-chia Foundation). His work was purchased by collections in Italy including the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna in Rome. Li fused his artistic practice with the newest tendencies in European art – kinetics, monochrome paintings, ‘all over’ composition. In 1965, he was invited by David Medalla and Paul Keeler to exhibit his work at Signals in London.
The following year Li decided to move to London and started working part-time for the furniture designer Zeev Aram at Aram’s showroom in King’s Road, Chelsea. He had three solo exhibitions, entitled Cosmic Point (1967), Cosmic Multiples (1968) and Golden Moon Show (1969), all of which opened at the Lisson Gallery in north London. The Guardian art critic, Frederick Laws, commented that his works ‘have, to someone who knows little enough about China, the delicacy, love for space, and unvitiated material of some traditional Chinese art’ (Laws 1966, p. 11). He also took part in the Hyde Park All or Nothing show in 1967. In 1968 he moved to the north west to Boothby (now in Cumbria), where he held a studio exhibition of his new work in October. He also participated in Su Braden’s democratic art show, Pavilions in the Parks in London in 1968. In 1971 he bought a farmhouse from the British painter Winifred Nicholson in the village of Banks (straddling Hadrian's Wall) and began the most important project of his life, the LYC Museum and Art Gallery (1972–83). A communal centre for learning and creativity, the LYC Museum became a focus for people interested in art, introducing visitors to relatively inaccessible pieces, and encouraging creativity in children. Among others, he exhibited works by Barbara Hepworth and Naum Gabo. He eventually staged over 330 exhibitions over ten years and supported the early careers of artists including Andy Goldsworthy, David Nash and Shelagh Wakely. Li's own work was also on display, including his early watercolours with calligraphic gestures, his large magnetic red and black discs with circles and shapes which visitors were encouraged to touch and arrange at will. In 1971, Li participated in Pioneers of Participatory Art at the Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, alongside other renowned artists such as Lygia Clark, John Dugger, David Medalla and Graham Stevens. Li's last London exhibition was the groundbreaking The Other Story: Afro-Asian Artists in Postwar Britain, a survey show of 24 artists curated by Rasheed Araeen at the Hayward Gallery, London and touring (1989-90).
During the last four years of his life, Li continued to pursue various types of artistic practice simultaneously, even though he was suffering from health problems. He experimented with superimposed photography, painted monochrome reliefs incorporating photographs and Chinese inscriptions on moveable panels, and also produced short poems. Li Yuan-chia died of intestinal cancer at the Eden Valley Hospice in Carlisle, England in 1994. His work is represented in the UK public domain in the collections of Tate; Victoria & Albert Museum; Sainsbury Centre for the Visual Arts, University of East Anglia; Laing Art Gallery; and Gallery Oldham, among others. His archive, comprising correspondence, manuscripts, drawings and audio-visual material relating to his artistic practice is held in the University of Manchester Library. Li’s series of hand-coloured photographs were exhibited at the Whitworth, Manchester in 2019. In 2020 a retrospective exhibition was held at Tate St. Ives, Cornwall. The group exhibition Making New Worlds: Li Yuan-chia & Friends was held at Kettle's Yard, Cambridge, in 2023.
Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Li Yuan-chia]
Publications related to [Li Yuan-chia] in the Ben Uri Library