Wenzao Ursuline University of Languages has officially established its first arts center nearly 60 years after the university was founded. The university recently held a grand opening tea party, inviting distinguished guests from the fields of technology, art, and academia nationally, as well as international media reporters, to celebrate the establishment of the arts center with the faculty and students of Wenzao.
The establishment of the arts center originated from a generous donation by one of our alumni, Ms. Zhong Yu-Ying, who served as the Head of the French Department. Ms. Zhong, who studied in the French Department during the second year after Wenzao was established as a junior college, made the donation as a gesture of gratitude for the solid French education and personal development she received from her alma mater. The arts center is located in “Zhen-Fu Hall” on the second floor of the Wen-Rui Building, a space that was also made possible through Ms. Zhong’s donation. In the hope of using artwork to deepen the roots of aesthetic education on campus, Ms. Zhong actively facilitated the establishment of the arts center.
In addition to cultural relics spanning nearly 60 years, various files, and art pieces, the Wenzao Arts Center houses a total of 262 invaluable academic and artistic works, including oil paintings, pencil drawings, watercolor paintings, and engravings, received from the collector Mr. Zhong Dong-Ming. His daughter, Ms. Zhong Xiao-Wen, donated the collection to Wenzao Ursuline University of Languages with the assistance of Ms. Zhong Yu-Ying, who also helped in building professional storerooms for the collection. The collection features art pieces by modern Chinese painters such as Ren Chuan-Wen, Wang Zhi-Ying, and Yao Jian-Hua, as well as an authentic piece by Taiwan’s art master Li Mei-Shu. The art styles represented in the collection include classical, Chinese realistic painting, realism, expressionism, and more. There are even important cultural relics from Japan and Indonesia in the collection.
The establishment of the Wenzao Arts Center began at the end of 2023. The center utilizes Zhen-Fu Hall and Mu-En Hall in the Wen-Rui Building as venues where professional storerooms with fixed temperature and humidity have been built for small, medium, and large art pieces and cultural relics. The arts center will open this September (2024), offering a multifunctional space for exhibitions by faculty and students, self-study, research, and various activities. Besides regular art exhibitions, faculty and students will be able to share books they love and engage in more interactions. By sharing favorite books at the arts center, faculty and students can take the ones they like home and let aesthetic appreciation take deeper root in every corner of the campus.
