Chang Dai-chien (张大千) was one of the best-known and most prodigious Chinese artists of the twentieth century. Originally known as a guohua (traditionalist) painter, by the 1960s he was also renowned as a modern impressionist and expressionist painter. Chang is regarded as one of the most gifted master forgers of the twentieth century.
Born in a family of artists in Neijiang, Sichuan, China, he studied textile dyeing techniques in Kyoto, Japan and returned to establish a successful career selling his paintings in Shanghai. The Chinese Muslim General and Governor of Qinghai, Ma Bufang sent Chang to Sku’bum to seek helpers for analyzing and copying Dunhuang Buddhist art.
Chang left China in 1948 and moved to Mogi das Cruzes, Brazil, and then to Carmel, California, before finally settling in Taipei, Taiwan. A meeting between Chang and Picasso in Antibes in 1953 was viewed as a summit between the preeminent masters of Eastern and Western art. The two men exchanged paintings at this meeting.
Wherever he lived, Chang Dai-ch’ien’s residences were expressions of his good taste. All of them, “Plum Blossom Village” in Szechwan, the “Garden of Eight Virtues” in Brazil, “Ko Yi Chu (The Habitable)” “Huan-pi Retreat” in the United States and the Abode of Maya in Wai-shuang-hsi, Taipei, had beautiful gardens.
Construction of the Abode of Maya was begun in 1976 and completed in August 1978. It is a two-story building occupying approximately 1,911 sq. m. Chang designed the two-story, courtyard-style building and the matching Chinese-style gardens himself.
The Chang Dai-ch’ien Residence is also known as “the Abode of Maya”. Maya is an allusion to Sakyamuni’s mother, in whose belly can be found 3,000 microcosmic worlds. In accordance with Chang Dai-ch’ien’s bequest, his family donated the residence to the National Palace Museum 100 days after his death, where the Museum converted it into a memorial to the artist. The house has been preserved exactly as it was during Chang’s lifetime, giving visitors a moving glimpse of the home life of this great painter.
For more info: http://www.npm.gov.tw/exh96/dai-chien/en01.html