Qigong (artist)

Qigong (Chinese: 启功, courtesy name Yuanbai 元白, alternatively Qi Gong) (July 26, 1912 – June 30, 2005) was a renowned Chinese calligrapher, artist, painter, connoisseur and sinologist. He was an advisor for the September 3 Society, one of China's minor political parties.

Qigong was born into a Manchu family in Beijing in 1912. Both his great-grandfather and grandfather were Jinshi, the highest Chinese academic title roughly equivalent to a doctoral. He was a descendant of the Yongzheng Emperor through his son Hongzhou, and therefore a member of the Aisin Gioro imperial clan. Upon coming to prominence, he declined to use both the Manchu "Aisin Gioro" or sinicized Jin surname, and went by the legal surname of "Qi" to establish a name for himself removed from that of the Imperial family.