Paul Pei-Jen Hau
Feb. 25, 1917-May 20, 2025
Los Altos, California
Paul Pei-Jen Hau led a remarkable life. Books have been written about his background and his art.
Paul Hau (Hou Beiren), artist, diplomat, scholar, author and teacher, passed away at age 108 in his Los Altos home on May 20, 2025. Paul was born in Haicheng, Liaoning Province, China in 1917, moved to Hong Kong in 1949 and came to California in 1956 with his family.
After attending college in China, Paul received a full scholarship to the Imperial Kyushu University in Japan. After graduating in1943, he fled back to China to join the war effort in Chongqing, the temporary national capital, eventually joining the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In 1946, he was elected as a legislator in the National Assembly and moved to Nanjing. He was a signer of the 1947 Chinese Constitution, a copy of which can today be seen at the Stanford Library. In the same year, Paul married Mary Zhang (Zhang Yunqin), resigned from the National Assembly, and moved with Mary to Beijing. Paul and Mary remained married for almost 80 years until her passing in 2023.
In 1949, with the fall of the nationalist government, Paul was faced with the choice between remaining in China, where he would have been welcomed into the new government, or leaving China. He chose to go to Hong Kong, with Mary following some months later. In Hong Kong, he worked as a journalist and authored textbooks to support his family which had grown to include son Louis and daughter Rose.
Life in Hong Kong was not easy, and in 1956 Paul was able to emigrate with his family to the United States under the Far East Refugee Program and with the sponsorship of the Catholic Relief Services. Originally intending to move to St. Louis to be with relatives, Paul arrived in San Francisco and found the vibrant Chinese community to be very welcoming. After stays in San Francisco and Menlo Park, in 1961 Paul built a home for his family in Los Altos, later naming the home “Old Apricot Hall,” and remained in that home for more than 60 years until his passing.
From the age of five, Paul had a strong interest in painting and calligraphy. Before the War, Paul had studied Chinese brush painting with masters Li Zhongchang and Huang Binhong and later with Zheng Shiqiao in Hong Kong. When in Chongqing, he met and exhibited with Fu Baoshi, another artist who influenced him. While his opportunities to pursue painting in China and Hong Kong were limited by the chaos of the times, coming to California opened the door for Paul to become one of the most significant Chinese artists of the second half of the twentieth century. He is viewed as one of the early practitioners of Chinese “Ink Splash Painting,” as established by his friend and colleague, Zhang Daqian, while pioneering his own unique style. He spent the last six decades integrating his style with Western contemporary art influences, bridging the two countries. Amid the hardships and strife in his life, art was a constant source of comfort.
Starting in 1956, the year he arrived in the US, Paul had a series of Exhibitions in the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond at venues including UC Berkeley, the University of Santa Clara, Villa Montalvo, and many others. Notably, in 1963 he had a solo exhibition of his work at the DeYoung Museum in San Francisco, and in 1964 at the New Orleans Art Museum. In 1980, a 25-year retrospective of his work was presented at the San Jose Art Museum. With the opening of China in 1979, Paul was able to return to the home of his birth where, in his honor, the Hou Beiren Art Museum was opened in Kunshan, China in 2004, and the Hou Beiren and Zhang Yunqin Gallery was opened at the Liaoning Museum in Shenyang, China in 2015. Both museums have significant collections of Paul’s paintings and calligraphy, and the Hou Beiren Museum also displays works from Paul’s donated collection of Chinese masters. Paul and Mary traveled back to China often where they were always warmly welcomed by dignitaries in the art world and beyond. Dignitaries from China would often visit them at their home in Los Altos.
While Paul has had uncountable solo and joint exhibitions of his work in the US, China, and Europe over the years, his work with local students was always very close to his heart. He taught Chinese Brush painting at the Palo Alto Art League beginning in 1956 with a fifty-year retrospective of his work in 2015. In 1979, when China and the Unites States established diplomatic relations, he founded the American Society for the Advancement of Chinese Arts (ASACA) with a group of his students. Paul’s role in promoting cultural exchanges between China and the West is notable. He used the brush to connect the two worlds.
For 35 years, he along with his wife Mary owned the Chinese Fine Arts Gallery located on State Street in Los Altos. With his easy unassuming manner, he made friends easily locally and abroad.
He continued to paint well into the age of 107.
Paul is survived by son Louis (Liz), daughter Rose (Jim), grandchildren Philip, (Maybelene), Alison, Sarah, and Ann, and great grandchildren Alex and Zack.
Tags: arts/media
