Chinyee is a first generation Chinese-American artist who came of age during the Sino-Japanese war in Nanjing. As a child, she studied at the Nankai Middle School in Chongqing.
She came to New York through a Fine Arts scholarship based on her superb academic record in high school in Nanjing at the College of Mount Saint Vincent. Following her studies at Mount Saint Vincent in 1951, she received her MFA in Art Education from New York University in 1953 before joining the United Nations and traveling to the Congo. Chinyee also spent time studying at the Art Students League.
Although she began exhibiting her work in the 1950s, her first relationship with an established gallery was with Mi Chou Gallery in 1965, the first gallery for Chinese artists in New York City. Mi Chou Gallery is well known for its exhibitions of masters Qi Baishi and Chen Qikuan and gave Chinyee her first solo exhibition.
Chinyee’s work has been recognized by UNICEF and chosen on a number of occasions by the U.S Department of State’s office of Art in Embassies (AIE) to be exhibited and displayed in U.S. embassies and ambassador’s homes all over the world.
Playing a roll in group shows and having her own solo exhibitions throughout the United States, Asia, and Europe, Chinyee’s unique painterly style is considered to blend Chinese brush technique with a superb understanding of modernist abstraction.
In 2007 and 2008 a retrospective of Chinyee’s ouvre was by the Shanghai Art Museum and by Alisan Fine Arts Gallery in Hong Kong, respectively.
Chinyee currently lives in Princeton, New Jersey where she maintains a studio.
The above work is From a Dobbs Ferry, NY estate.