Tai Yu
Lineage & School of Heritage
Tai Yu was born into the Tai family of woodblock New Year painters in Nanxiaoli Village, Fengxiang County. Influenced by his grandfather and father from childhood, he began learning the family's woodblock New Year painting techniques at the age of five, and at ten he worked at block carving and printing while still attending school. Through years of diligent study he has made many innovations on the basis of the family tradition; he is able to carve blocks with both hands, which is regarded as a unique feat in the world of woodblock New Year pictures.
Mastery, Signature Works & Repertoire
Male, of the Han ethnic group, born in 1932 in Fengxiang, Shaanxi. He is a national representative bearer of Fengxiang Woodblock New Year Pictures, a first-batch national intangible cultural heritage project, and a folk artist and craftsman of Shaanxi Province. His New Year pictures have bold and rugged forms, full compositions, and strong red-and-green color contrasts. Over his lifetime he created several dozen New Year pictures, including Hutou (Tiger Heads), Shizi Gun Xiuqiu (Lions Rolling an Embroidered Ball), Ershisi Xiao (The Twenty-Four Filial Exemplars), Sishi Baoxi (Auspicious News in All Four Seasons), Shouxing (The God of Longevity), and others. In 1989 he compiled and edited the album Fengxiang Woodblock New Year Pictures, which has been reprinted nearly ten times and has played an important role in publicizing and introducing Fengxiang woodblock New Year pictures to audiences outside the region.
References & Archival Sources
Representative Items of This Bearer
Profile
This static English edition is rendered at the edge for search engines, AI crawlers and readers without JavaScript. Compiled from official national representative bearer archival records, organized by topic and translated into English. 阅读中文版。