Wang was born in Beijing in 1913, and emigrated to United States of America in 1945. Fred was an alumnus of the Catholic University in Beijing and Columbia University in New York City. In the 1940s he worked with Henry Courtenay Fenn on Chinese grammar at the Institute of Far Eastern Languages at Yale. He taught Chinese language and literature between 1945 and 1965 at Yale.[1] At Seton Hall University, he was the chairman of the department of Asian studies and founder and curator of the Wang Fangyu Collection of Asian Art.[2] He was also part of the team which developed the first Chinese language teaching computer system. Several books and dictionaries on the Chinese language and calligraphy were written by him.
Wang Fangyu was also a calligrapher in his own right, taking up the art later in life. His work has been shown in numerous venues including: E & J Frankel Gallery, 1980 (New York, NY), Rijksmuseum Voor Volkenkunde, 1981 (Leiden, Netherlands), Asia Society, 1984, (New York, NY), University of Iowa, 1991, National Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, 1994 (Stockholm, Sweden) The Newark Museum, 2000 (Newark, New Jersey) Duke University Art Museum, 2002 (Durham, North Carolina).[3] His work is in the Seton Hall University Permanent Collection.
Wang was also an avid collector of Bada Shanren paintings and calligraphies. During his lifetime, he and his wife Sum Wai (沈慧) amassed the largest private collection of Bada Shanren's art. The Freer Gallery of Art later bought the entire collection from the couple's estate.[4]
When he died, he left behind relatives in mainland China, Taiwan, and the USA.[5]
Wang, Fred Fangyu; Fenn, H C; Tewskbury, M Gardiner (1961). Lee, Pao-Ch'En (ed.). Read Chinese. Jeffrey Norton Pub. ISBN0884320901. Retrieved 24 April 2014.
