Caterer to stars hopes for brush with fame in return

 

(The Standard 24 Jan 2014)A celebrity restaurateur whose mission to change Western attitudes to Chinese food as "lowest of the low" has lasted nearly 50 years, Michael Chow is also a trained painter who had not picked up his brushes for decades.

 

The man whose restaurants became glamorous centers in Swinging London, New York's disco days and today's Hollywood and art world has unveiled his first solo exhibition in Asia - "Recipe for a Painter" - which runs until March 8 at the Pearl Lam Galleries on Pedder Street.

 

He said the imposing mixed-media canvases reflect his complicated relationship with China and Zhou Xinfang, the father he last saw when he was 13.

"Something I had forgotten about, something wiped out of my memory, has been reunited," he said.

 

Zhou, a popular Beijing Opera star, died in the chaos of the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution.

 

Born into privilege in pre-communist Shanghai, Chow escaped as he was packed off by boat in 1952 to boarding school in Britain, aged 13.

"It's like me coming home to reclaim my Chinese heritage, and reclaim the name Zhou - my father's name," said Chow, 74, who paints under the name "Zhou Yinghua."

"This exhibition completes my journey, my life," he said. "[Art] has been suppressed for 50 years. Now I am free.'