The Artist as Collector
Years of drifting in London forced Michael Chow to give up his dream of taking up Zhou Xinfang’s legacy. However, his life abroad opened up a new world of artistic activities. Among the pieces of modern and contemporary art Chow has acquired over fifty years, his portrait collection is perhaps the most acclaimed. Chow has worked with more than 20 artists since his first portrait by Pop artist Peter Blake in 1966. The portraits vary dramatically in style and medium, documenting the distinctive personal history of Michael Chow while acting as a narrative thread within contemporary art history. The portraits include works by some of the bestknown modern and contemporary artists from the 1960s onward, each incorporating elements from Chow’s life and career. The portrait collection makes visible a set of perspectives on the intersection and coexistence of East and West at a certain historical place and time, a portrait of both the artists and their shared subject.
The archival photographs on display document the history of Chow’s family through the illustrious figure of Zhou Xinfang. Zhou performed over 600 hundred different plays in his lifetime, and his Qi School of performance remains a prominent style of Beijing opera. 2015 marks the 120th anniversary of Zhou Xinfang’s birth, and the photos shown here memorialize this important figure in modern Chinese cultural history.
About the Artist
Michael Chow (b. 1939, Shanghai) attended Saint Martin’s School of Art and had a brief career in painting until the late 1960s when he opened the restaurant MR CHOW in London’s Knightsbridge. With encouragement from close friend Jeffrey Deitch, Chow began painting once again after a forty-six-year hiatus. He held a solo exhibition last year at Pearl Lam Galleries Hong Kong entitled “Recipe for a Painter.” His UCCA exhibition is his first solo show in Mainland China.
Download “Michael Chow: Voice for My Father” press release.
“Chinese esthetics is rooted in expansive stretches of white punctuated with at times dense collections of material, creating a vision of Chinese ink-and-brush painting. From an early age he was immersed in the highest forms of Chinese culture, and it's an influence that he carries with him to this day..”
—China Daily
“For Chow, his return to painting might be just a desire to rewrite the ending of his life’s movie script. But for China and its contemporary art scene, Chow sets an example of re-invention. In fact, Chow’s rise in life and in art might set a new trajectory for China’s cultural rebirth.. ”
—New York Times
Michael Chow, born Zhou Yinghua in Shanghai in 1939, was abruptly uprooted to England at the age of thirteen, where he lost his family and name. Voice for My Father illuminates Chow’s long journey, celebrating both father and son—the Beijing opera star Zhou Xinfang (1895–1975), and the artist and legendary restaurateur who has recently made a triumphant return to painting. Their stories are told through rare archival images and personal portraits by such artists as Jean-Michel Basquiat, Urs Fischer, Julian Schnabel, and Andy Warhol.
Published on the occasion of Michael Chow’s first exhibition in China, held at the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing, and the Power Station of Art, Shanghai, on the 120th anniversary of his father’s birth, this book affords a close look at Michael Chow’s artistic practice and persona. It also includes Chow’s screenplay about his father’s life, as well as essays by Jeffrey Deitch, Philippe Garner, Gong Yan, Christopher R. Leighton, Liu Housheng, Shan Yuejin, Philip Tinari, and Christina Yu Yu.