Traveling on Remote Mountains

Chang often generously created paintings as gifts for his friends. This work, inspired by a plum blossom in the early winter, depicts two recluses starting a journey in the cloudy mountains. It was presented to Chang’s longtime friend Professor Hsin-nung Yao (also known as Yao Ke, 1905–1991), a playwright who helped the artist translate his discourse on Chinese painting when the book was published in Hong Kong in 1961. Because Yao’s satirical play The Sorrows of the Forbidden City angered Chairman Mao in 1967, the playwright had to relocate from China to California in 1969. Chang and Yao both liked Peking Opera, and they maintained a strong friendship during Chang’s stay in the Bay Area. Yao later taught theater at the University of the Pacific and introduced Chang when the artist received an honorary doctorate degree there in 1974.