Bio
(1937-2001)
Painter. Born of a Chinese father and a Venezuelan mother, he arrived in Venezuela in 1950 and resided in Maracaibo, his mother's place of origin. He began his art studies in 1956 at the Julio Arraga School of Plastic Arts in Maracaibo. That year he made his first solo exhibition at the Mare Mare Gallery, in Caracas. In 1958 he participated in the V Salón D'Empaire, where he won the Stimulus Prize, for which the Municipal Council of Maracaibo decided to grant him a scholarship to continue his art studies in France. That same year he arrived in Paris and enrolled in the Superior School of Fine Arts.
In 1962, Francisco Hung participated in the VIII Salón D'Empaire and won Second Prize. During those years and painting style showed the influence of European abstract expressionism, with marked interest in the proposals of calligraphic and material painting, in the style of George Mathieu or Roberto Matta. Francisco Hung returned to Venezuela in 1963 and settled permanently in Maracaibo. There he participated in the creation of the '40 Grados a la Sombra' group and maintained an active and successful participation in the art halls. He was selected for the exhibition "22 Venezuelan painters of today", traveling through Santiago de Chile, Montevideo and Lima. In 1964 he obtained three of the highest recognitions of the Salon of Young Artists in the MBA.
In 1965 he received the National Painting Prize of the XXVI Official Hall with 'Materia Flotante'. In 1967 he was exhibited in the company of Francisco Bellorín and Carlos Contramaestre at the Museum of Modern Art in Bogotá. Between 1967 and 1968 he worked with the team of artists and technicians for the audiovisual show 'Imagen de Caracas', on the occasion of the four-hundredth anniversary of the capital. In 1969 he joined the university renewal movement and painted murals with groups of students and other artists, in squares and neighborhoods of Maracaibo; These works were later erased. He also painted murals in the Faculty of Economics of LUZ. Francisco Hung's painting style, apart from maintaining a great degree of coherence in its plastic discourse, has had several stages in its evolution, all within his own very personal style. In 1977 he exhibited a series of self-portraits and, in 1991, he exhibited another surprising series of self-portraits and portraits of his family, showing us a new facet of the artist.
AWARDS SELECTION:
1963: Henrique Otero Vizcarrondo Prize, XXIV Official Salon / Honorable mention, III Paris Biennial / First prize, X Salón D'Empaire.
1964: Armando Reverón Award, XXV Official Salon / Roma Prize, XXV Official Salon / Honorable Mention, XXV Official Salon / Belloso Foundation Award, X Salón D'Empaire.
1965: National Painting Prize, XXVI Official Salon / Arturo Michelena Prize, XXIII Arturo Michelena Salon / Isai Leirner Acquisition Prize, VIII São Paulo Biennial / First prize for painting, I Salon of Young Artists of Latin America, MBA.
1966: Electrical Energy Award of Venezuela, XI Salón D'Empaire.
1969: First prize (shared with Francisco Bellorín), XII Julio T. Arze Hall.
1970: Arturo Michelena Award, XXVIII Arturo Michelena Hall.
1981: First prize for drawing, Salón de Occident, Mérida.
1985: First prize, III National Biennial of Visual Arts, Barquisimeto Museum.
1986: Arturo Michelena Award, XLIV Arturo Michelena Hall.
