Biography

• Born February 16, 1894, at Shende Hall in Zhenze Town, Wujiang County, Jiangsu Province, and died in Shanghai on August 27, 1953.  • His original name was Tongsheng, later shortened to Tong, with the courtesy name Qinmu — a reference to the paulownia wood (tong) used to make the guqin (qin), a classical Chinese zither.  • His sobriquets included “Cold Maple Hermit” (referencing a Tang dynasty poem) and Cangwu Sheng, and his studio was called the Zhiyin Thatched Cottage.  Career: • His development as a professional painter and connoisseur owed much to the patronage of Pang Yuanji, a renowned collector and connoisseur from a neighboring town.  Pang was one of the most important private collectors in early 20th-century China, and this mentorship gave Wu access to connoisseurship training and firsthand study of great works. • He was mainly known for landscape painting in the classical literati tradition, often referencing older masters in his compositions and inscriptions. • He was notably popular in Japan — four of his landscapes were selected for the fourth joint Chinese-Japanese art exhibition in 1926.  • His final known work, “Autumn Scene,” was exhibited at the China National Painting Exhibition in 1953,  the same year he died. His works today circulate mainly through auction houses (Christie’s, Sotheby’s, Bonhams) and museum collections like the Met, typically as hanging scrolls, handscrolls, and folding fans — landscapes, occasional flower subjects, and pieces referencing classical literary/poetic themes.