Governor's Heritage Award - Lucy Liu

Lucy Liu of Seattle, Washington grew up in northeastern China, where she learned artistic calligraphy as a child. Fleeing war and insurrection, she lived in many cities throughout China. After 1949 Liu lived in Taiwan, where she studied traditional Chinese landscape and bird and flower painting. Liu made her way to Berkeley, California, in 1973, working as a researcher for an American expert on Chinese folklore. Liu received a degree in fine arts in the Western tradition from Eastern Washington University and has taught art at Seattle-area community colleges. Liu’s traditional Chinese brush painting has a wide following in the Northwest and she has shown and demonstrated her work at many galleries and museums. In 1983 Liu founded the Chinese Arts Society Northwest. Liu is an artist, an art teacher, and a promoter of Chinese art, both within and outside of the Chinese-American community. Lucy Liu was awarded a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1994.