Birds, flower, leaves and figure

Born of a wealthy family in Gaozhou, Guangdong Province, he completed his secondary education and then went to the Tokyo Academy of Art from which he graduated when 23. His early works show much western influence, but by the early 1930s he had abandoned his interest in Western painting to devote himself to Chinese ink painting, feeling that, in his own words 'Chinese art is superior (to Western art) in the sense that its artistic expressions are limitless - because it is not tied to any exterior form.' After the Sino-Japanese war of 1937-45, Ding became head of the reorganised Guangdong Provincial Art College. In 1949, Ding moved to Hong Kong and continued to paint and teach both Chinese and Western art. He was one of the founders of the Fine Arts Department of New Asia College at the Chinese University in Hong Kong.

In these seemingly effortless drawings, familiar subjects are treated with a delightful freshness and great economy. The sparseness of the compositions, the paring down to the absolutely essential, adds a keenness to our enjoyment of the sketches.

Asian Art Department, AGNSW, April 1985.