Chinese Canadian painter-- RAYMOND CHOW
RAYMOND CHOW is an internationally renowned artist from Vancouver, Canada. Over 48 years, University of British Columbia graduate in Art Education & Piano from Toronto Royal Conservatory of music. Gardens, Coastal Scenes, Kids, White Satin Gowns, Race Horses, Grand Pianos, Nudes, Still Life, Florals, Cats, Windows, Doors. His art has reached numerous galleries across Canada, Hawaii and the USA. He produces tiles, metal prints, Giclee Prints on canvas, portraits of women & children. He participates in fundraising for several non-profit groups. He is working on his song of 5 years: Vancouver Totally Yours. He is the designer of ArtDayze, with Peter Daniels.
Throughout his career, Raymond Chow has met many public figureheads and has been commissioned to paint portraitures of them. Some have included Clint Eastwood, Sunny and Cher, and Princess Elizabeth of Yugoslavia.
Other collector’s of Raymond Chow’s paintings have included Indira Gandhi, Paul Anka, Raymond Burr, Gordon Lightfoot, and David Lam.
Raymond Chow has exhibited with some of the most prominent contemporary artists in the world including AJ Casson, Andrew Wyeth, and many more.
His daughter Lisa won the title of Miss Vancouver Chinatown 1989. Raymond Chow can be considered as a North America Picasso.
You owe it to yourself, to own a Raymond Chow today!
About myself-- RAYMOND CHOW
I was born an artist in the back of an east end grocery in Vancouver B.C. My parents were both born in Vancouver and both came from large families; my father from 15, my mother from 10. Both my Chinese grandfathers emigrated from South China, the Toy San area.
To quell the small space, my parents bought me a new small brown upright Mason Riche piano and I started piano lessons age 5. When my grandfathers’ 160 acres of farm in Richmond was sold, my mother designed a house in the Mount Pleasant area and my father and his friend built the house in three months. I still remember the two working on building the roof of that house, where my son and granddaughter live now.
In the summers, I was shipped to stay with my aunts and uncles on the Richmond 160 acres between number One road between Williams and Francis roads. We had fun as children running free between rows and rows of corn sheaves and seeing huge mountains of potatoes in my grandfathers large barns. My grandfather Mah Bing became known as the potatoe king of Richmond in the 1940’s to 1950’s. I watched my uncle who was studying to become a young architect, drawing buildings, and who eventually became a successful architect. I wanted to be like my uncle and draw houses.
At age 7, I was constantly drawing and copying master artists at age 9. At age 12 my watercolours were put into a century vault at Queen Elizabeth to be opened 2054. I won contests and won a bike and the Red Cross poster contest, with a painting of a robin feeding her young. At age 14-16, I was drawing stores in the East End and buildings in Chinatown. At age 18, I had two art agents. One who handled the art of Picasso, the Art Emporium, the other handled the best Vancouver established artists, the Harrison Art Gallery, formerly Dutch Art Gallery, Alex Harrison.
At age 28, I had art agents in Hamilton, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, Winnipeg, Kelowna, Victoria, Gig Harbour, Washington. Later at age 38, I owned 3 art galleries and 3 grand pianos and travelled to London, England, for ten months and owned a large 4,000 square foot house and 12 automobiles and warehouse to restore them. I completed 3 hours of 16 mm film as experiments in Film, I was influenced by the great film maker Norman McLaren of the National Film Board. I went 4 times to Hawaii to draw and paint and enjoy the warmth of Hawaiian beaches.
At age of 48, I was working on the White Gown Series and had completed the 40 painting series of Lisa Chow, who became a Miss Vancouver Chinatown in 1989/1990. At age 68, I discovered I was instantly related to Cho Cho who united 3 fighting kingdoms to form China and Cho Xuquin who wrote the great 18th century novel Dream Of The Red Chamber in China, made compulsory reading by chairman Mao Tse Tung in the 50’s. After selling my house where I was a single parent when my son was 5 and daughter 9, I bought a warehouse some 8 years ago when I was 62 and sized down.
My imagination went to highgear and experimented profusely with computer parts and abstractionist paintings with a piano theme. I bought a wonderful 7 foot Jaded Heintzman grand from the Piano House in Vancouver and Richmond and wrote some 300 original piano compositions for a future film I call The Key To The Red Chamber. I went to a Picasso show at the Vancouver Art Gallery 5 years ago and discovered how similar we were in art subjects in paintings I created some 10 to 30 years ago.
