Charles Chu was born in 1918 in Hebei Province, about 100 miles southwest of Beijing near Shijiazhuang. The little farming village had a short, one hole bridge that locals said dated back to the Sui dynasty (580-618 CE). Charles' was raised by his mother and his father's older brother and his wife - his father died when he was three. His mother, who called him "little frog" for his antics, would lay down on the bed to make it warm for him before he went to bed. Charles remembers, "Oh, they were wonderful people."

No one in his family had "studied characters," but Charles was sent first to and area school and then to high school in Beijing. It was in school that he began to paint, studying with a master who had been a student of the famous painter Qi Baishi. North China in the thirties was increasingly turbulent and Charles' studies were frequently interrupted by demonstrations against Japanese colonialism. In 1937 the Japanese invaded and Charles left to join the Nationalist army with 46 yuan his aunt gave him: "I was patriotic." He joined a Combat Support Regiment stationed first in Tai'erzhuang, where the Nationalist Chinese put up a tough defense and then in Nanjing. He served for three years, and wanted to continue but his leader recognized his talent and insisted that he go to the war-time capital in Chongqing to enter university.

He prepared diligently for the college entrance tests and was able to enter the National Central University in Chongqing despite his lack of a high school diploma. Chongqing during WWII was an international metropolis, and many famous Chinese painters lived and exhibited there. During this period Charles had almost no means of support: during his trip to Chongqing he had stayed here and there with other students while trying to conserve the fifty kuai the army officer had given him. In Chongqing he went to an English teacher at the school, an American woman named Esther Sailor, and asked her if he could take English classes with her as a special student. Recognizing his talent and appreciating his character, she agreed and also interceded for him with school officials so that he could start taking regular classes. To this day, Charles tears up when he remembers this woman who did so much for him, "my savior," the one who really gave him his greatest break. In college, his better off classmates would sometimes take him out for dinner. When the war ended, Charles was able to win admission to UC Berkeley and one of his classmate's fathers gave him $4,400 to be able to make the trip to the US.

At Berkeley he met Bettie, and they soon married and started a family. A few years he traveled to Harvard to continue his studies in Political Science, a direction of study that confused many of his friends. Holding his arms wide, Charles says, "I wanted to understand the great world and that was why I studied politics." He had intended to return to China, but the Communist victory left little room on the mainland for a Nationalist and his American family and he shifted his vision to adopt this country and make his impact as a teacher. The scholar John King Fairbanks arranged a position for him teaching Chinese at the Monterrey Language Institute in California, and so he and his growing family made the trip back west.
After three years at Monterrey he was recruited by Yale where he taught Chinese while he raised his family. In 1965 he moved to Connecticut College in New London to establish and direct their Chinese program. Until his retirement in 1984, Professor Chu taught Chinese language, literature, and the history of Chinese painting. He was known by his students, many of whom maintain close contact with him, as a wholly devoted teacher of the most influential kind.

Charles had always painted, but upon his retirement from Connecticut College at the age of 65, he was able to devote himself fully to his painting and to collecting paintings through the Chu-Griffis Collection.  This extensive collection of literati style paintings was established in Charles Chu's honor by his close friend Toby Griffis and funded by the Griffis Foundation and by numerous donors of funds and paintings.  It is housed in the Charles Shain Library at Connecticut College.

At ninety, Charles Chu still has a lot of the character that moved his mother to nickname him "little frog." Energetic and curious, his frustration with diminished vision and hearing seem almost irrelevant when contrasted with his enormous energy and spirit. His love of people, his continued respect for learning and intellect, and his creative nature remain striking. This exhibition brings some of his best work of the past six decades to the people of his adopted home state.

Parts of this biography were taken verbatim from Paula Chu's biography of her father on the Little Frog website at http://www.littlefrog.com/home.

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