Chen Jin's 115th Birthday

Today’s Doodle celebrates the birthday of Chen Jin, also written as Chen Chin, one of the first female painters to earn recognition in Taiwan. With delicate brush strokes and radiant colors, she painted the way for generations of female artists to come.

Chen Jin was born on this day in 1907 in Hsinchu county. She painted for the first time in high school, instantly falling in love with the art form. Her art teacher encouraged her to pursue art and suggested to her father that she continue her education in Japan. This was an unconventional path at the time, considering most of Taiwan’s artists were men. 

At 18, Chen Jin boarded a ship that set sail for Japan. She had earned a spot at Tokyo Women’s Academy of Fine Arts, making her the first Taiwanese woman to study art abroad. After studying under prestigious Japanese artists, Chen Jin was selected to the Taiwan Fine Arts Exhibition. She was one of three Taiwanese artists out of 92 participants. The exhibition gave Chen Jin the opportunity to showcase her work to a wider audience as she became an acclaimed artist across Taiwan and Japan.   

Chen Jin’s preferred method of painting was gouache, an opaque watercolor. She continued to hone her craft with figure paintings that depicted the daily lives of upper-class Taiwanese women. In 1934, Tokyo’s Imperial Fine Arts Academy Exhibition accepted Chen Jin’s piece, “Ensemble,” making her the first Taiwanese woman to earn a selection. The iconic painting features two Taiwanese women playing a yueqin (Chinese banjo) and dizi (bamboo flute).

Chen Jin returned home that year and became Taiwan’s first female secondary school teacher at Pingtung Girls High School. She served as a juror for the Taiwan Fine Arts Exhibition while creating pieces like “Infant” and “Familial Portrait” in her free time. In 1958, Chen Jin held her first solo exhibition that showcased 62 of her paintings at Chung-Shan Hall in Taipei. 

Chen Jin’s paintings are on display in the Taipei Fine Arts Museum’s permanent collection. In 2003, the National Museum of History showcased “The Beauty of Chen Jin's Ladies," which included 32 of Chen Jin’s paintings from 1932 through 1998.

Happy 115th birthday, Chen Jin!