David Wu Ject-Key (1890-1968)

David Wu Ject-Key spent the first twelve years of his life in his native Zhongshan, Guangdong, located along China’s southern coast, before emigrating to Canada and eventually enrolling at the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts. Upon graduation, he moved to New York City and furthered his education at both the Grand Central School of Art and the Art Students League. At the latter institution, he worked under noted figure painter George Bridgman, who thought young Wu advanced enough to assist in his classes. Bridgman’s lessons often stressed the importance of understanding anatomy and would influence Wu’s approach to the human form in both his portraiture and easel paintings. Wu also applied his talents to landscape and found much to inspire him among the artists’ colonies of Massachusetts, which were popular summer destinations for city artists seeking an escape from the concrete jungles of Boston and New York. For Wu, the wharves of Gloucester and Rockport along Cape Ann and the charming fishing village of Provincetown at the tip of Cape Cod provided a wealth of subject matter. 

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In 1927, Wu married Danish-born ballerina and artist Elsebeth Kjaersgaard, and the couple immersed themselves in the art circles of the day. A fellow Bridgman student and accomplished painter in her own right, Elsie joined and held leading positions at the National Association of Women Artists, and both she and her husband became members of and exhibited with the Knickerbocker Artists, the Allied Artists of America, the Salmagundi Club, and the American Watercolor Society during the 1950s and 1960s. Wu earned many awards from these organizations over the years and today both the Salmagundi Club and the American Watercolor Society have memorial prizes named in honor of David Wu and Elsie Ject-Key as a testament to their creative legacy. Wu also showed with the National Academy of Design in 1956 and 1957, and with Gloucester’s North Shore Arts Association in 1958 and 1959.