Don Hong Oai (1929-2004) Chinese/American, Embellished Photograph. The composited image with hand-colored additions shows a misty river surrounded by tall craggy mountains, with a cherry blossom branch in the foreground and a man on a fishing boat in the focal point near center. Titled in kanji with seal upper left, as well as an additional seal bottom right. Signed and dated 1991 in pencil on the matting bottom right. Stamped on the back along with an informational paper including the artist biography and studio address on the back. 

Overall Size: 20 1/4 x 16 1/4 in. 

Sight Size: 9 x 7 in. 

Don Hong Oai was born in Canton, China in 1929, and was raised and educated in Saigon, Vietnam. At age thirteen he began an apprenticeship at a photo and portrait shop. His photographs were made in a unique style called Asian pictorialism, which originated from Hong Kong in 1940 and was practiced by the great master Long Chin-San, with whom Don studied. Incorporating the traditional motifs of Chinese painting (birds, boats, mountains, etc.), photographers of this school used more than one negative to create a picture, layering them on top of each other with different objects from each negative given a specific focus, striving more to form visual allegories rather than realistic imagery. In 1979 he fled Vietnam by boat, winding up in San Francisco’s Chinatown. At the turn of the millennium his work found a broader audience, and he worked tirelessly in his small darkroom, without an assistant, until his death in 2004. 

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