Plato Chan – Chinese Boy Genius of 1938

Posted: January 8th, 2016 | 2 Comments »

In 1938 the celebrated Cooling Gallery in London at 92 New Bond Street launched a new exhibition with a new artist – a Chinese artist called Plato Chan, who was just 8-years old. Plato’s art was put to a good use – the publisher Victor Gollancz organised Palto’s shows in London to raise funds for the China Campaign Committee.

Plato Chan’s father was in the Chinese diplomatic service and the family traveled all over Europe and Asia, living in Germany, France, England, Greece, India and China, and many other places. In 1938, after the Japanese invasion of China and just before the onset of war in Europe the Chan’s found themselves posted to the Chinese Embassy in London on Portland Place. It seems his mother, Madame Chih-Yi Chan, was his greatest publicist – his father seems to have remained somewhat more in the background. He also collaborated with his sister Christina. As to his slightly odd name – Mrs. Chan explained that in 1931, the year Plato was born, a new planet was discovered. Plato’s parents regarded this as something of a portent. Slightly odd as it was Pluto that was discovered in 1930, not Plato.

Plato Chan’s work was actually quite popular – Mollie Panter-Downes, the author of the New Yorker’s “Letter from London” during the war, attended a 1939 show of Plato’s at Coolings and was impressed with both the art and the good cause. He had quite a career – he is said to have started painting at just 18 months and reputedly began designing patterns for French fabric companies before the war (i.e. when he was about 6 or 7!!). He also exhibited in Paris and elsewhere in Europe, as well as London, and, it was claimed, painted a portrait of Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon (Queen Elizabeth then, later the Queen Mother) – though I have no idea where that portrait is now. The story goes that Plato hand-delivered it to Buckingham Palace. When World War Two broke out I think the Chan family was at the Chinese embassy in Berlin and Plato’s father was sent to an internment camp in Germany. Plato, his sister Christina and and the rest of the family, went to New York. It was there that his mother adapted a traditional Chinese tale for her son to illustrate. The Good Luck Horse was published in 1943, when Plato was barely thirteen years old.

He later illustrated another adaptation of a traditional Chinese tale – The Magic Monkey – in conjunction with his sister…

I believe Plato later attended Columbia University in New York and died, aged 75, in Philadelphia in 2006.

PS: for the London history folk – here’s the block of 92-94 block of New Bond Street in 1953. Coolings was in the rooms above the shops. 92 is now a branch of the shirtmakers TM Lewin…

 

 

 

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