When Chiang Kai-shek’s photographer snapped Chang Ta-chien’s flower garden – rarely seen images on display in Shanghai

Seventy images of artist Chang Ta-chien’s flower-filled Taipei courtyard, taken by Hu Chung-hsien, Chiang Kai-shek’s official photographer, have gone on show

The photographs, embellished with Chang’s calligraphy, have not been seen in public since 1983 – and could be shown in Hong Kong when the Yuz Museum show ends

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Master Chinese painter Chang Ta-chien (right) and renowned photographer Hu Chung-hsien in Chang’s flower-filled courtyard in Taipei, Taiwan. One of Chang’s favourite pastimes was to invite Hu to the courtyard to take pictures of the flowers in his garden. Photo: Yuz Museum

Published: 2:45pm, 23 Nov 2020Updated: 6:49pm, 24 Nov 2020

When master Chinese painter Chang Ta-chien died at the age of 83 in Taipei, Taiwan in 1983, he was interred in a courtyard filled with plum blossoms, lotus flowers, babbling brooks and stone bridges. The courtyard was one he designed and lived in, and one immortalised in photos.

Chang (also known as Chang Dai-chien or Zhang Daqian), who admired Hu Chung-hsien’s work, often invited the photographer – who served as official photographer to pre-Communist China’s leader Chiang Kai-shek – to take pictures of the rare flowers in his garden. Chang would add calligraphy to the pictures.

The images – 70 taken between 1979 and 1982 – are on public display at the Yuz Museum on the West Bund in Shanghai.

Shi Wen, the deputy director of the museum’s exhibition department, says it’s the first time the works have been displayed in nearly four decades.

The Abode of Illusions: The Garden of Chang Ta-Ch’ien is being held at the Yuz Museum in Shanghai. Photo: Yuz Museum

“[The founder of Yuz Museum] Budi Tek discovered the works in California. Their original collector’s descendants wanted to sell them. Tek liked them a lot and spent a lot of money buying them.”