Wú Chāngshuò (September 12, 1844 - November 29, 1927) is the name for which Wu Junqing is best known. He was born in Zhejiang

Zhejiang

Zhejiang is an eastern coastal province of the People's Republic of China. The word Zhejiang was the old name of the Qiantang River, which passes through Hangzhou, the provincial capital...

 from a scholarly family and for a time toward the end of the Qing he served as an official in Liaoning

Liaoning

' is a province of the People's Republic of China, located in the northeast of the country. Its one-character abbreviation is "辽" , a name taken from the Liao River that flows through the province. "Níng" means "peace"...

. He settled in Suzhou

Suzhou

Suzhou , previously transliterated as Su-chou, Suchow, and Soochow, is a major city located in the southeast of Jiangsu Province in Eastern China, located adjacent to Shanghai Municipality. The city is situated on the lower reaches of the Yangtze River and on the shores of Taihu Lake and is a part...

 in his twenties.

Initially, he devoted himself to poetry and calligraphy with a strong interest in early scripts. He also led a society of seal-carvers. Only later did he consider himself a painter associated with the "Shanghai school

Shanghai School

The Shanghai School is a style of Chinese art present in the late 19th century and centered in Shanghai. Late 19th century China, or the last years of the Qing dynasty formed a tumultuous time in China's history...

." As a painter, he was noted for helping to rejuvenate the art of painting flowers and birds. He considered carving seals and doing paintings to be integrated to each other.

His work garnered him fame and was highly regarded in Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

.

Sources

• Chinese Paintings in the Ashmolean Museum Oxford(162) Oxford
  Oxford
  The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...
  
  ISBN 1-85444-132-9
• Wu Changshuo and his Painting Gallery at China Online Museum
• Chinese culture site
• Examples of his work at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston