page_title: Po Shun Leong
section_title: The 1940s
hierarchical_section_title: Po Shun Leong / The 1940s
caption_attribution_description: English: Ocean Liner sculpture 2001, image licensed by the artist
context_page_description: Po Shun Leong was born in Northampton, England, on March 15, 1941 and is an artist, former architect, sculptor and furniture maker. He was educated in the United Kingdom, first at the Quaker Leighton Park School in Berkshire, and then at the Architectural Association School of Architecture, in London, and has resided in Southern California since 1981. He is also known since the late 1980s for his highly intricate and inspiring one-of-a-kind wood boxes that have been enthusiastically acquired and are in museum collections. The "Landscape" box, a constantly evolving series since 1983 - more drama than box - is architectural in character and built up of many different woods in their natural colors. They are inspired from ancient or legendary civilizations. The flamboyant sense of shape, surprise and presentation combined with his initial struggles in Mexico has created a following for his art worldwide.
  Po Shun was one of the dominant American woodcraft artists making boxes during the 1990s, selling well in the galleries and to collectors. The unique look and playfulness of the artwork has helped keep that style relevant and inspirational.
context_section_description: Po Shun is the son of Ah Yow Leong and his second wife, Wright Jing (née Woo). Po Shun is the eighth child, initially raised in a family of nine siblings (elder stepbrothers and stepsisters: Po Yan, Po Yee, Po Lye, Ruby, Dolly and Eileen, brother Po Chih and sister Juliet.)  Po Chih is a film director. Later in life, Po Shun discovered that he had another brother and sister, making him the tenth rather than the eighth child.
  His father Ah Yow Leong was born in Toisan, southern China around 1891. About 80% of the Chinese who came to the USA during the nineteenth century came from Toisan. Ah Yow Leong travelled to England sometime around the First World War and jumped ship at Liverpool. He began washing clothes and through hard work and charisma became a successful businessman. He started the Leong Trading Company and purchased a ship in Hong Kong to import goods to England. During the Second World War, the Japanese occupied Hong Kong and the ship was taken. With his company inoperable, he opened the Universal Chinese Restaurant at 11 Denmark Street, Soho, London. He died in 1948 after falling down the stairs.
  Po Shun's mother, born Lai Jing Woo, came from the village of Shun Tuck Yoon, Guang Dong, China as second wife to Po Shun's father. She was born on December 4, 1913 of the Chinese lunar year calendar. Po Shun's father had six children by his first marriage. His wife did not like living in England so she returned to China, leaving the children behind. One day, Po Shun's father showed his eldest daughter Ruby three photographs of different women from China, telling her that one of these women were coming to England to look after her and that he was allowing her to choose which woman it would be. She chose the one she liked the looks of best from the three photographs and the woman did indeed come to England. Po Shun's father married her and she gave birth to Po Shun. What Po Shun's father did not tell Ruby was that the three women in the photographs were the same person in different make-up, hair styles and clothes. Po Shun's mother currently lives in the Los Angeles area, sharing time with Po Shun’s family and his brother Po Chih.
  When the sirens screamed in London during the Second World War, Po Shun and his family headed underground for the deep shelters to avoid German bombs. To escape the dangers in 1944, his parents sent him as a three-year-old child to live with a carpenter in the countryside on the outskirts of Northampton until the end of the war. Mr. Page and his wife also managed a location to collect laundry in their storefront home that was sent to Ah Yow Leong’s large Sunlight Laundry in the city.
  The carpenter had a hobby of making model ocean liners. One of them, a majestically long vessel filled his small parlor. When he carved the complex wood pieces, Po Shun crouched beside the liner and rolled marbles along the enclosed decks and into the maze of its inner chambers. Mr. and Mrs. Page were a childless couple and became very attached to the young Po Shun. When his parents came to collect Po Shun at the end of the war, Mrs. Page was devastated and had a nervous breakdown.
  His mother did not have the patience to bring up her own three children. He and his brother Po Chih went to a kindergarten boarding school in Harrow, north of London. His younger sister Juliet went to Hong Kong to live with the Chan family. Work was very hard in his father’s Chinese laundry and she was not well received by his father’s older children from a previous marriage.
  Po Shun was introduced to carpentry at the age of five when in 1946 he was sent to Holmewood House, a boarding school near Tunbridge Wells. Although he loved to create models of buildings, he had an ability to draw and at the age of eleven had a painting exhibited at the Royal Drawing Society in London and was awarded an honorable mention.
caption: Ocean Liner Sculpture by Po Shun Leong
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