In the 1940's, he regenerated the old admiration for Chinese ceramics, but died while pursuing his determined efforts to revive traditional ceramic arts in his war-torn country.
Household ceramics designed by this former graduate of the Art Academy of Paris still impress visitors with their ageless forms and "modern" patterns half a century after the dedicated designer made them.
Decorative artist Peng Youxian (1906-49) has long been remembered as the founder of the famous China Ceramics Factory, and designer of the 175 Chinese ceramic pieces commissioned for British Queen Elizabeth II's wedding in 1947.
An exhibition commemorating the man and his work is on at the National Art Museum of China until this Thursday (March 25).
On display are 58 traditional Chinese paintings and eight ceramic design drawings by the artist, and a set of coffee cups designed by Peng and produced by the China Ceramics Factory in 1948.
Peng was one of the first Chinese artists to study decorative arts in Paris in the 20th century, said Zeng Zhushao, sculptor and professor with the Central Academy of Fine Arts.
One of the favourite students of Pan Tianshou (1897-1971), a master of Chinese painting who taught at the National Art Academy in Hangzhou, in east China's Zhejiang Province, Peng left China to attend the Art Academy of Paris in 1930, with his friend Wu Zuoren (1908-97), now also a respected master painter.
Peng studied decorative arts at the French academy with the idea in mind of modernizing ceramic art design in Jingdezhen, in his home province Jiangxi, which was fettered by hackneyed traditional concepts of design.
In 1936 he started work as a designer in the design department of the Jiangxi Ceramic Administration at Jingdezhen, which had been the main centre of ceramic production in China for almost 1,000 years, eventually becoming head of the department.
Every year he had a grand ceremony held at Jingdezhen to launch the production of ceramics of new design.
"When he was in charge of his department, new design came out of Jingdezhen every year. Old designers we interviewed still remember those ceremonies," said Peng's daughter Duan Haiqun.
A porcelain dinnerware service named "Ceramics of Triumph," designed by Peng himself, was sent as a national gift to Harry Truman, then president of the United States, at the end of World War II (1937-45).
"My father believed ceramic works should be simple, beautiful, reasonably priced and practical," said Duan.
In his spare time Peng collected design drawings executed over past centuries, compiling them in an archive which has ever since been an important source of inspiration for designers at Jingdezhen.
In 1945 in Jingdezhen, which had been devastated by the war, Peng opened the China Ceramic Factory in an attempt to revive the ceramic industry in China.
His dream came to a hard end in 1948, when he had to close the factory because of the galloping wartime inflation.
A year later, he died at age 43, because of illness.
"His friends always remember him as a passionate young man," said Duan.
In 1931 in Paris, for example, he led 30,000 overseas Chinese in a parade organized to protest the Japanese invasion of Northeast China in that year.
(China Daily March 22, 2004)
