Ling Shuhua was born in Beijing, China in 1900 into a prominent family of officials. She studied painting under the court painter of Empress Dowager Cixi (Tzu Hsi), and later received guidance from other Chinese masters. In 1947 Ling and her husband, the diplomat Chen Yuan, left China and settled in London, where Ling became best known for her European landscapes painted in a Chinese style, holding a solo exhibition at the Adams Gallery in 1949.
Painter and writer Ling Shuhua was born Ling Ruitang in Peking (now Beijing), China in 1900 into a prominent family of officials. Her father Li Fupeng, the mayor of Peking, was an accomplished literary man who loved painting. Ling received private training in classical Chinese literature and painting like many young ladies of her privileged background. From the age of six she studied painting under Miao Suying, the court painter of Empress Dowager Cixi and later received guidance from Chinese masters Qi Baishi and Wang Zhulin, while her calligraphy was taught by Kang Youwei. In 1922 she enrolled in Yenching University in Peking to pursue a degree in foreign literature. In 1925 she published her first short story, After Drinking, which won instant fame. Soon after graduating, she married the editor and academic Chen Yuan, the founder of the important May Fourth journal Contemporary Review, and in 1927 the couple moved to Whuhan where Chen became dean of the Faculty of Arts at the University. During the 1930s Ling published three collections of short stories. Her literary work was characterised by detailed psychological descriptions and intimate portrayals of women often challenging the injustices of a society based on patriarchal values. During her years in Whuhan, Ling became closely acquainted with British writer Julian Bell, who later put her in touch with his distinguished aunt, Virginia Woolf.
Following the Sino-Japanese war, Shuhua and her husband relocated to Leshan, where Whuhan University had been moved. Ling wrote and painted, publishing stories and essays in magazines and newspapers. As a way to ease the pain and anxiety brought on by war, Ling maintained a correspondence with Woolf between 1938 and 1941, exchanging ideas about writing. In 1946 Ling and Chen moved to Paris where he was appointed as a representative at UNESCO; in 1947 Ling and her daughter moved with Chen to London where the cost of living was lower than Paris. Already in her late forties, she struggled to remake herself as a writer and artist in England. She had to adapt to a new language and environment, and saw her reputation in China fading as literary politics shifted. During her first years in London, she could count on the support of Virginia Woolf’s sister, the artist Vanessa Bell, turning to her frequently for advice, including on attending classes at Newnham College, where to buy canvas and stretchers, how to study lithography, and possible galleries for exhibiting her paintings (Welland 2007, p. 303). With the help with Woolf’s friend and fellow writer Vita Sackville-West she later retrieved her letters from Woolf’s husband; these were published in 1953 under the title Ancient Melodies.
Ling was also invited by the University of London and University of Oxford to give lectures on Eastern art and drama. From the 1950s she contributed illustrated articles to Country Life, often recounting her time in China, including childhood memories, as well as writing about Chinese art (such as a 1956 article on Chinese woodcuts). She also continued to paint, her work rooted in the Chinese ‘literati tradition’, characterised by an impressionistic approach as opposed to the formal attention to detail of the Northern School. A talented lyrical painter, Ling was best known for her paintings of flowers, birds, and landscapes. In 1949 she held her first solo show in London at the Adams Gallery which included still-lifes and landscapes. Her European scenes painted in the Chinese style provided viewers with unfamiliar images of familiar surroundings and attracted great attention. The New Statesman and Nation art critic Quentin Bell praised in particular ‘a tentative, but masterly, adumbration of wooded hills, misty water and luminous atmosphere entitled View of Bournemouth […] The seaside resort has been translated into rarefied and celestial terms […] It is in this European subjects that Ling Su Hua shows the greatness of her talent’ (Bell 1949, p. 779). From 1956 to 1960, Ling taught Chinese literature at Nanyang University in Singapore. In 1959 her work was included in the Asian Artists’ Exhibition at the Asian Institute Gallery, London. In his review published in the Journal of the Royal Society of Arts, art critic Neville Wallis commented: ‘[…] the spare Chinese drawings of Ling Su-Hua captivate the eye and mind. The work of this distinguished artist and writer […] is here seen to perfection in the hazy mountain peaks, The Rhythm of the Clouds , painted on silk in monochromatic washes’ (Wallis 1950, p. 485). Ling was also a collector of Chinese paintings of the Ming and Ching Dynasties which were shown in London in an exhibition organised by the British Arts Council in 1967.
Ling returned to Bejing shortly before her death. Ling Shuhua died in Beijing, Peoples Republic of China in 1990. Her work is held in the UK in the collection of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, which held a celebratory exhibition in 1983.
Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Ling Shuhua]
Publications related to [Ling Shuhua] in the Ben Uri Library