Ho Chao-chu was born in Hsinchu, 1931. His father Ho Hsin-yen was a painter of Buddhist painting. Under his father’s influence, the artist has enjoyed painting since he was a child. After graduating from the National Chutung Senior High School in 1949, he enrolled in the Fine Arts Department of Taipei Teachers College and completed the studies in 1952. Ho was selected for the prestigious Tai-yang Art Exhibition and the Provincial Fine Arts Exhibition when he was still a student. He received the Tai-yang Award for Child and Bird in 1960. In the years to come, he would have bagged many other awards including the Honorable Mention from the 15th Provincial Fine Arts Exhibition for Back Street, the Grand Prize from the Provincial Teaching Faculty Fine Arts Exhibition for After the Rain, and the Golden Nobility Award in oil painting in 1971. An established painter, Ho has served as a juror in major fine arts competitions in Taiwan. Ho’s painting career can be divided into four stages. From 1953 to 1961, he followed first-generation painters in creating plein-air and still life paintings. As modern western painting was introduced to Taiwan in the 1960s, Ho also began to experiment on the abstract and the figurative using color masses. By the 1970s, he was able to create artworks with the masterly use of colors and lines. Until today, Ho still breaks down the painted surface and applies color masses a lot. He has an excellent command of painting with palette knives. With time, he has grown to like brighter colors, too.

Sunset at An-ping, Tainan is the subject matter of this painting. Unsophisticated, historic houses and a few fish boats complement one another in the golden glows of sunset, giving a sense of peace and purity. Just like the artist’s many other works, this painting is composed of objects turned into abstract color planes. Thick layers of paint are applied to create a special texture. Succinct, solid brushstrokes indicate Ho’s mature, masterly skills in art.

Ho Chao-chu was born in Taiwan during the Japanese Rule. Educated by the Japanese, Ho has grown into a conscientious and careful person with a good command of the Japanese language. He started receiving education in Mandarin Chinese in 1945 and enrolled in the Fine Arts Department of Taipei Teachers College to study his beloved painting art. Ho has devoted himself to creating paintings ever since. Because there was warfare and social uproar during his youthful years, Ho witnessed how art and culture can be changed in the most drastic way. Nevertheless, he decided to take steady steps in establishing a painting career when the war ended. Based on the many plein-air painting practices, he took up a cubist painting style using plentiful lines and color masses, and gradually turned to a semi-abstract style as abstractionism became the vogue. He uses palette knives, brushes and oil paint to present his poetic inner world. Ho’s effort has resulted in a unique style of his own.