Gallery of Artists in Residence of Martyrs

The two-story 400-square-meter house looks tranquil on the Fuchun River near downtown Fuyang， a county-level city about 40 kilometers southwest of Hangzhou， the capital of Zhejiang Province. The house belongs to the Yu Family.

In the first half of 20th century the family produced two martyrs: Yu Dafu and Yu Hua. Yu Dafu was the younger son of the family and a brilliant poet， essayist and novelist. He was killed by Japanese gendarmes in 1945 in Indonesia. His elder brother Yu Hua was a justice after he completed his studies in Japan and came back to China. He helped get many progressives out of jail despite the government order. And he threw many people charged with treason into jail. That was why he was assassinated by special agents sent by Japanese and its puppet government on November 23， 1939 when he was on his way to work. He was the first man in the Chinese legal system who got killed during World War Two.

In 1940， a mass funeral was held in Shanghai in his honor. It was attended by people from all walks of life. His younger brother Yu Dafu sent an inscription all the way from Sumatra. In April 1947， a public ceremony was held in the eastern side of Stork Hill on the Fuchun River. A blood-stained clothe， worn by Yu Hua when he was assassinated， was buried in the grave there. In 1952， he was recognized as a revolutionary martyr by the central government.

The house was built by Yu Hua for his mother. It has been a memorial house for the two brothers for a long time. Now it also doubles as Yu Feng and Huang Miaozi Art Gallery.

Yu Feng was Yu Hua’s daughter born in 1914. In 1933， the 17-year-old girl came to Shanghai to study under the guidance of Pan Yuliang， a celebrated female artist of the day. In the same year， the 19-year-old cartoonist Huang Miaozi came to Shanghai from Hong Kong. The two met. In 1935， a literary magazine published Yu Feng’s self portrait and illustrations by Huang Miaozi. It was the first time that the two made their jointly appearance in a literary magazine. They were totally unaware that they would be together for sixty years.

In 1936， Yu Feng appeared as Wu Zetian， a queen of the Tang Dynasty (618-907)， in a drama in Shanghai. While Yu Feng was a high profile person in social activities in Shanghai， her parents got everything ready for the daughter to study art in France. Yu Feng took a crash course in French for a month. She got her passport and visa. She packed embroidered gowns in her suitcases of which her younger sisters were envious. But at the last minute， she changed her mind. Yu Feng went to Guangzhou and later Hong Kong to help operate a newspaper calling for national resistance against Japanese invasion. Huang Miaozi went with Yu Feng.

The two later moved to Chongqing， the wartime capital of China. They got married in May， 1944， witnessed by Xia Yan， a famed playwright and leader of the League of Left-wing Writers.

In the Anti-rightist Movement of the 1950s， Yu Feng and Huang Miaozi were both designated as rightists. They spent seven years in prison. During the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976)， the husband was exiled to the wilderness of the Heilongjiang Province in northeastern China whereas Yu Feng kept the family together alone.

When the turmoil ended and they were politically rehabilitated， they resumed their artistic activities. They wrote art reviews and essays， they created paintings and functioned as calligraphers. Together the couple was regarded as double stars in the national circles of art. The couple staged their first joint exhibition of painting and calligraphy in 1994， about 50 years after their first coincidentally joint appearance in the Shanghai-based literary magazine.

Yu Feng passed away in April 2007.

When the Yu family residence at the foot of Stork Hill on Fuchun River was turned into Yu Feng and Huang Miaozi Art Gallery， Liu Yandong， a member of the political bureau of the central committee of the CPC and state counselor， wrote a letter of congratulation to mark the occasion. In the letter， Liu spoke highly of Yu and Huang’s achievements and contributions to the country and praised their donations of artworks to art galleries and museums.□