Local photographer and professor Frank Lei Ioi Fan passed away in mid-May after a long illness. The artist had been in a coma for four years at the Ka-Hó Rehabilitation Hospital due to a brain tumour. He was just 59 years old.
Alice Kok, president of the Art for All Society (AFA) and a person very close to Frank Lei, considered him an “inspiring artist”. A former photography student of Lei’s, Alice recalls that she met him in 1997. Despite the friendship that brought them together, she still called him, as she did from day one, “Lei Sir”.
“I have lost a beloved teacher, a friend. And the world has lost an inspiring artist, an educator, a humble and great man”, remarks Alice. “His photographic works are full of poetic sensitivity and express his own delicate observation of people and things in the world. Through his camera, he composed a contemplative image in the most appropriate time, space and light. I think his works always gave people a tranquil atmosphere, conveying a sense of comfort to the world,” the curator further notes.
Lúcia Lemos, head of the Creative Macau collective, of which Frank Lei was a member, describes him as a “humanist” and “easygoing”.
“He gave us the pleasure of having his work on the walls of Creative Macau. He was a photographer with a fantastic visual sensibility, a humanist and, in a way, a conceptualist. He helped many local artists,” she says, adding that Lei “was a consensus builder” and “easy-going”.
Anson Ng, founder of Pinto Bookshop, also mourns the death of Frank Lei. Although they were not close, the publisher and bookseller published the photographer’s book Seeing While Walking in 2005, a monograph of more than 100 pages that reveals work by the photographer produced between 1994 and 2004.
“We were not very close, but we still collaborated a few times. I received the news of his passing with sadness. I can only say that it is a great loss for Macau and I remember him with gratitude. He will be forever in our hearts,” he says.
Veteran photographer António Mil-Homens spent a lot of time with his Chinese friend and believes that Lei’s legacy is “absolutely” important to Macau’s cultural scene, with a special focus on photography. “Innovative and competent, modest but communicative. He leaves a gaping hole in Macau’s cultural and photographic panorama,” says the Portuguese artist.
President of the Institute of European Studies of Macau (IEEM), José Sales Marques commented that Frank was known for his deep connections to the artistic and cultural scene of the territory, noting that he was “one of the great names of photography in Macau”.
“Frank Lei will always be remembered for his cultural openness and for pioneering innovative cultural projects, including the Old Ladies House Art Space installed at Albergue SCM before its renovation.”
Director of local theatre group Comuna da Pedra , Jenny Mok considers “very important” what the photographer did when he founded the group in the 1990s.
“With his sister Jane [also a founder], they established the basis for what we, the second generation, have to work with today. He opened the field of vision for young people and I am extremely grateful for his genuineness, bravery and generosity,” she says.
Born in Beijing in December 1962, Frank Lei moved to Macau when he was ten years old. In the 1980s, he studied Journalism in Guangzhou, and after returning to Macau, he worked as a newspaper reporter for Ou Mun. Later, because of his passion for French New Wave films, he decided to quit his job and study in France in 1986. He obtained a bachelor’s degree in Film from the Sorbonne Nouvelle University Paris 3, and later graduated from the photography department of the famous École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs (ENSAD) in Paris. After eight years of studying in France, Frank returned to Macau in 1994 to complete a Master’s Degree in Chinese Literature and to start his photography teaching life at the Polytechnic Institute.
In 1991, Frank won the International Street Photography Competition, organised by the European Museum of Photography, in France. He photographed Fidel Castro’s Cuba in 1992, and had several solo and group exhibitions, including City Sight at the Macau Museum of Art in 2006 and Sleeping City: Macau at the AGFA gallery, Hong Kong Fringe Club in 1998. He also exhibited in France, Cuba and Portugal. He was a journalist for the Ou Mun newspaper and one of the artistic directors of Armazém do Boi, an iconic art space in the territory, which he helped found in 2003. He also helped found Comuna de Pedra, in 1996, and the project Old Ladies House Art Space in 2001 at Albergue SCM.
