(b Yidu, Shandong Province, 1932). Chinese painter. The son of an army officer who died early in the Sino-Japanese War (1937–45), Liu Kuo-song spent his childhood as a refugee in central China. He arrived in Taiwan in 1949 and was admitted to the Art Department of the National Normal University in 1951, graduating in 1956, the same year that he and fellow students founded the Wuyue huahui (Fifth Moon Painting Group). Although he was trained in both traditional Chinese and Western techniques, Liu was most interested in modern and contemporary movements in the West: Cézanne, Matisse, Picasso and Klee were among the first important influences on his painting. More important, however, was the impact made by ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM in the late 1950s. Liu and his colleagues recognized theoretical and stylistic similarities between this American art movement and Chinese literati (wenren hua) painting: Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko, Franz Kline and Jackson Pollock became their inspiration. Liu and his group became the second generation of Chinese painters to interpret Chinese traditions with modern Western techniques and images. Unlike Xu Beihong, Lin Fengmian and Liu Haisu, who had all received training abroad, these young painters learnt of developments in America and Europe from books and had little exposure to original works.