The Li Lida Legacy Project
Li Lida (李力達, earlier romanized as "Li Li-ta") is a multidisciplinary artist whose decades-long practice spanned oil painting, traditional Chinese and original calligraphy, abstract painting, calligraphic graffiti painting, and performance art. His work is characterized by a bridging of Chinese and Western styles; for instance, poems written in bold, calligraphic strokes that transcended regular forms or “Tai Chi Dance” performed to music and poetry.
Lida lived a storied life as an artist escaping civil unrest and war in Shanghai, Macau, and Hong Kong before immigrating to the United States in 1968. Despite being classically trained by masters in Chinese calligraphy, Tai Chi, and impressionistic oil painting, Lida ultimately grew dissatisfied with the rigidity of copying existing traditions. Shortly after arriving in San Francisco, Lida became inspired by the anti-establishment spirit of the 60s and instead pursued an artistic style that would echo his own transnational identity. He incorporated Tai Chi movements into his painting technique to completely reimagine Chinese calligraphy. The brush and ink became extensions of his body, a style which he termed “Calligraphy in Motion.”
Lida lived a storied life as an artist escaping civil unrest and war in Shanghai, Macau, and Hong Kong before immigrating to the United States in 1968. Despite being classically trained by masters in Chinese calligraphy, Tai Chi, and impressionistic oil painting, Lida ultimately grew dissatisfied with the rigidity of copying existing traditions. Shortly after arriving in San Francisco, Lida became inspired by the anti-establishment spirit of the 60s and instead pursued an artistic style that would echo his own transnational identity. He incorporated Tai Chi movements into his painting technique to completely reimagine Chinese calligraphy. The brush and ink became extensions of his body, a style which he termed “Calligraphy in Motion.”
One of his earliest exhibitions in the United States was in 1971 at the de Young Memorial Museum, where the San Francisco Chronicle complimented the "immense energy and zest" of his calligraphy. Like many Abstract Expressionists working in the United States at the time, embracing non-Western techniques and folding Chinese traditions into abstraction were central to his practice.
In his later years, Lida combined the spirit of graffiti and street art with Chinese calligraphy. The resulting “calligraphic graffiti paintings” featured words and phrases in multiple languages, imbuing masterful brushstrokes with the colorful bold energy and avant-garde spirit of graffiti art.
During his lifetime, he had exhibited internationally at the Tokyo National Museum, Japan; City Hall, Hong Kong; Denver Art Museum, Colorado; Santa Barbara Museum of Art, California; de Young Museum, San Francisco, California; The Asia Foundation, San Francisco; and the Ashmolean Museum at the University of Oxford, England. His work can be found in the permanent collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California; Seattle Art Museum, Washington; University of California, Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive; and The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Missouri.
Li Lida was born in 1922 in Shanghai, China, and died in 1982 in Berkeley, California.
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