Frontispiece Song of the Lute

Lu Wu-chiu was born in Tanyang, Jiangsu Province, in 1918. Her father was the artist Lu Fengzi (1886-1959), a former president of the National Art College of Suzhou. She studied painting and calligraphy under the tutelage of her father. She also learned the technique of free embroidery from Miss Yang Shouyu, and used this medium to create abstract works. Lu graduated from the Art College of Chengzhi, and also studied painting and sculpture at the Chicago Art Institute (1959) and the New York University (1967). The set of album leaves is inspired by the "Pipaxing," or "Song of the Lute" the famous poem by the Tang poet Bo Juyi (772-846).

Written in 816, this was Bo Juyi's most famous work, after the "Song of Everlasting Sorrow." In the poem, Bo Juyi described a musician he heard playing in a boat on the river. It is a masterful composition describing the meeting, the life story, the music, his feelings, and the minute detail of the musician's fine technique. Lu Wu-chiu painted the set of album leaves between 1988 and 1991 in Oakland, California. She attempted, she said, "to describe and express, by abstract paintings, the passions, emotions, and feelings" of this lengthy work. There are 88 lines to the poem. The album consists of a total of 44 paintings, each one illustrating two lines of poetry. Using various shades of ink, Lu's work is grounded in traditional Chinese calligraphic strokes, but expressed in abstract expressionistic forms. Even in the most abstract of paintings, the artist's Chinese sensibilities come through.