About the Artist

Master Chinese painter and calligrapher, Jim Hardesty (He Lishan) began his Chinese studies as a student of the celebrated Chinese calligrapher and scholar, Professor Fred Wang (Wang Fang-yu) at Seton Hall University, after joining the first intensive Chinese language program in the U.S.

"Captured by the Chinese brush" during this experience, Hardesty pursued advanced degrees in Chinese Art and Art History at Princeton University.

Next, he traveled to Taiwan as a Rockefeller scholar to study calligraphy and brush painting under the famous painters and calligraphers Wang Beiyue and Zhong Shouren.

After his return to the U.S., he served as resident artist at Cornell University's Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, considered one of the finest university museums in the country, where he taught Chinese brush painting and calligraphy for more than 25 years. Hardesty is the only Westerner whose paintings are included in Cornell University's extensive collection of Chinese art. Some of these works can be viewed online at emuseum.cornell.edu.

To pass on what he learned from Professor Fred Wang, Hardesty introduced Chinese calligraphy to Cornell students in the University's FALCON (Full-year Asian Language Concentration) and IMPAC (Intensive Mandarin at Cornell) programs. (See video here.)

Together with the Johnson Museum's Asian Art Curator, Martie Young, Hardesty co-founded Cornell's educational OMNI Program, in which he delighted in introducing "countless groups of visiting schoolchildren" to Chinese painting and culture. (See video here).

After a lifetime of devotion to Chinese art and culture, Mr. Hardesty put down his brush for the last time in June of 2021.