Doctor's Tale

Leather Sculpture

Tuan An-Kuo

Tuan An-Kuo was born in 1963 in Taipei City.  He was a beef vendor in his early life and he was impressed at the age of 30 when he saw the teacher Chan Miu-Miao’s character leather sculpture in a flower show at the World Center, thus he determined to dedicate to leather sculpture creation.  By self-exploration, he took most of the characters as the theme to portray different faces of human emotions, though his genius artistic abilities make a lot of people envy.  Neither studied from any teacher, nor had the art academic background, Tuan An-Kuo made his debut and was given affirmation by the 2nd Taiwan Craft Design Competition in 1994 alone with his own life experience and the love of art.  Later, through increasingly enhancing skills and observation on “people”, he turned all kinds of humanity into leather sculpture and has obtained quite high evaluation in the international arena, and his works are also appreciated and collected by art collectors.  It is not an exaggeration to call him a "talented" untrained artist.

Tuan An-Kuo has won numerous awards, in addition to the first prize of domestic Taiwan’s Crafts Design Contest, the Province Art Exhibition, Nationality Craft Award and National Craft Award, he obtained the 12th Japan International Leather Art Award the Big Prize in 1998, the US International Leather Art Exhibition First Prize in 1999, 24th Japan’s Arts and Crafts First Honorary President Award in 1999, 24th Japan Professional Craft Exhibition－Japanese Professional Association First Prize, and was appointed as Taiwan Crafts Master by National Taiwan Craft Research and Development Institute.

This work won the second prize in the first annual National Craft Award organized by National Taiwan Craft Research Institute in 2001, and because of the omission of the first prize winner, it was equivalent to the first prize.

Such work is a set of three, divided into three themes which are “Visiting Patients in the Rain”, “Late Night Studying” and “Giving Injections”, describing a doctor's daily life, passing on virtues of good heart, diligent self-study and treating patients as himself.  It can be described as a model in “Doctor's Tale”.

The creative ideas of the work are as following: First, visiting a patient at home: a doctor's steps on mud and out for clinics in a rainy day, showing a physician's good heart.  Second, the companion of late-night studies: a skeleton gives people a creepy and horrible feeling, but a doctor is accustomed to it, so being accompanied at midnight presents a quiet and warm picture.  Third, the moment of tension: children are always scared of injection, the struggling forms a tension screen of love and pity.

Since the work adopts special texture of leather craft, uses tailoring, molding, crepe rubbing, gluing, dyeing, painting ...... and so on to make humanoids, the clothing and objects, sophisticated scripture techniques.   The overall shape is realistic and lifelike, also the details are very delicate.  The description of common people's life is quite vivid and successfully appreciative and it is something worth repeated pondering.