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Hello:
I am a graduate student at CSUMB and have been searching and re-searching the child prodigy Wang Yani for over one month now and have been unable to find a single thing about her after she turned 16. She was born in Gongcheng, China. I have sent over 300 emails in my quest to learn about this young woman's life (she will be 30 on May 2). I am interested in her life after she turned 16. I am assuming she is no longer painting, but I'm interested in what she IS doing, where she is living, where life has taken her, etc.
Thank you.
Michaelia Morgan
Pacific Grove, CA

I'm a 4th gr. teacher and my students are wondering about her as well after reading A Young Painter. My search for answers have come up blank as yours have. Any luck since April?

I'm a 4th gr. teacher and my students are wondering about her as well after reading A Young Painter. My search for answers have come up blank as yours have. Any luck since April?
Hi:
I wrote over 300 emails, made dozens of phone calls and always, always hit a blank wall. I found it completely mysterious! Eventually, one woman in London uncovered the fully unsatisfying information that Yani married a German (and is presumably living in Germany). Her father could not even be located.
I speculate that she does not want to be found and is possibly being protected.

I did write my paper and shifted the focus a bit to child prodigies and those of us with extraordinarily high IQ's. I also included what I felt/thought had happened to Yani. My prof loved my paper!

There are other Chinese prodigies that can be studied; there is a book that lists at least 10 Chinese artist prodigies. I realize that is not the same thing as learning about Yani :(

There is a film about Yani that your students might enjoy, and The Brush of Innocence is also about Yani.

Sorry I could not tell you more. Feel free to write to me directly.

Hello,

We are a 5th grade class in California and googled for information about Wang Yani and were surprised as well that there is no information about her. Please forward any information you may have. As Wang Yani's story is embedded in many of our Readers and other Language Arts materials the children are naturally curious about her when they discover she was born in 1975 and is approximatley the age of many of their parents. What became of her father, what is their relationship like? Did the Chinese government play a role in deciding their personal lives?

regards,

Rick Brady :)

Hello Rick:
I found nothing more than the innocuous, "Yani married a German". I was thwarted at every turn when trying to find information about her. I sent over 350 emails, made many phone calls and even enlisted the help of a Chinese man who searched using the Chinese characters of her name. He mysteriously stopped helping me, but not until he'd sent me one thing (that only served to pique my interest all the more); that was: "Yani's father helped her with all his might in 2002." I was astonished. Helped her how? She would have been 27; what did she need? What was going on? Any further investigation was impossible as no one would answer my questions. I, too, wanted to know the answers to the questions you pose (as well as many others), but even after another school teacher contacted me about Yani, subsequently WENT to China and asked IN PERSON, ZIP is being revealed. My feeling: Yani doesn't want to be found. Why? I have no idea. I was equally unable to find anything about her father, despite his earlier artistic fame.
I did eventually write my paper on Yani anyway; it had to change directions when no new information was yielded, but I'm happy to send a copy to you via email (sadly, it will not contain Yani's art as my original paper did); just let me know.
Take care.
Michaelia
Pacific Grove, CA

I just found information about Wang Yani on another online forum, ArtConversation. Here is the post:



Yani Today
Hey,
to Debra and to Mrs. Kelter's 3rd. grade class. I am an art teacher from NC and I have been corresponding with Yani off and on for a few years. It started with my own search for more info on Wang Yani on the Internet. I had seen her work in our school library and wanted more infomation on her so I could do a lesson with my classes. I posted inquiries for months and finally received answers from a german couple from Munich. That led to a few letters from Yani herself. She is now 31 (?), living in Munich and was recently married to another Chinese artist, Min-An. Last year she gave birth to her first daughter. Her work is restricted for sale here in the States but she is still producing beautiful works, quite a different style and subject matter from her monkeys but gorgeous still nonetheless. If you are interested in seeing some of her most recent works,or the address of the gallery with which she works, e-mail me at [email protected].
Yogii Moose

I, too, have searched for more about Yani Wang, and to see more of her work.
If you can forward me the name of the gallery with whom she works, and any pictures of her work, I will be as happy as her early paintings.
Thank you,
Judy Schuman
Kaillua-Kona, HI

Hello to Yogii Moose:
Yes, I would like to have any information you have on Yani. I also wrote a wonderful graduate-level paper on Yani, and I'd like to be able to send it to her. I have sent emails directly to you, but I haven't heard back.
Thank you.
Michaelia Morgan

I too was facinated by the book and the story of this young artist's life. Please include me in on any information that is out there. If Yogii Moose or anyone else has information on how I can see her latest work, please post or email me. I am a teacher and would love to share this with my students.
E. Sosaya

I'm very interested in Wang Yani for no particular reason except that I love the freedom of her painting. I am an artist and teacher. I'd love to see her recent work.Maggie

I'm a Gr 6 teacher, and I came across this forum in my attempt to learn more about Wang Yani after reading about her in a student text. Digging a little deeper, I found the website of the gallery in Germany that shows her work. Unfortunately the page is in German, but there are some samples of her more recent work. You can get a sense of what the page says using Google's Language Tools to get a (very) rough translation.

URL Title :Galerie Jaspers (Munich)

thank you 6th grade teacher i went on that site but i need more facts and pictures for any more?

I have just recently read the story of Wang Yani and found your comments very distressing that she has no current info. I also thought it very unnerving how she and her father just disappeared. I found a website explaining info on who I fear is her father and his fate.

http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2007/2/6/82426.html

Scroll down to #29. It would correlate with the last info we have on our young painter and why she left China and went into seclusion.

I am a young artist coming out of New Zealand

I am absolutely shocked by what happened here!
Today I just discovered her in a book at the uni library and now I have searched and read these posts!

It would be amazing to be able to hear an account of what happened from her and see her latest work!

The Wang Shiqiang that was sentenced to long prison terms is probably not Yani's father, because Yani and his father are from Gongcheng City, Guangxi Province, while the unfortunate Wang Shiqiang is from Huainan City, Anhui Province. The two cities are far far away. And they are not like New York and Los Angeles, they are more like Auburn, Alabama and Chattanooga, Tennessee. I cannot think of any reason why one would want to move from one city to another. And Wang Shiqiang is a quite common name in China (think Donald Brown).

Also, she did not just disappear. Her current gallery is posted here (use Google language tool to translate):

http://www.galerie-jaspers.de/Yani.html

I am no artist or art critic, but her current work is just not my thing (Picasso is not my thing, either).

URL Title :Wang Yani\'s current gallery

yes, I know her family well, I can be absolutely certain of that information about her father is false! someone mistook different persons with a same Chinese name.

From what I researched, Wang Yani has been living in Germany since the 90's. In 1996, at 21 years of age, she studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. She has had many exhibitions throughout Germany including one at Jaspers Galerie. She married a photographer Wu Min-an and has three children.

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