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While it seems inconceivable that Olympian Jim Ryun, Chinese dictator Mao Zedong, baseball great Satchel Paige, and Carolyn Kennedy Schlossberg could have much in common, they share one thing: all have been shaped into likenesses by the hands of Chinese sculptor Wu Kwan.

During China's Cultural Revolution (1966-76), Mao considered artists the most dangerous intellectuals because art has the ability to mobilize people of all levels and education. China's artists, and most other intellectuals, were often incarcerated or sent to farms and put "out to pasture." Even after the revolution, libraries were considered centers of potentially dangerous capitalist ideas and remained padlocked mortuaries for the dust-covered books not destroyed. But in the 1970s, as a teen in Guangzhou, Wu showed such artistic promise that his headmaster slipped him a key to the library so he could thumb through Western art books at night.

Gradually, the government began to invite artists back into society. By 1981, Wu Kwan was teaching at the Art Institute of Guangzhou, and much of the cultural chaos caused by Maoist doctrines had faded into a bad dream. Wu gained recognition as a sculptor of monumental pieces—some as high as 45 feet—exhibiting the muscularity and heroic proportions of Russian social realist art. In 1988, Wu met a leading American bronze sculptor at a cultural exchange. Unexpectedly, he was invited to serve as visiting professor at the University of Kansas for one year.

Wu Kwan never expected to leave his native country—travel even between provinces prior to 1990 was heavily monitored by the government. His only exposure to English had been during casual evenings at the institute, where an American from Zhongshan University taught English by reading from the Old and New Testaments. "In my background, I had no religion," Wu explains, referring to Mao's complete repression of religion. "But this teacher spoke simply about Jesus taking care of all our sins in a way that moved many of us. I began to understand something of Christianity, even though my priority was to learn English."

Transplanted suddenly to Kansas, Wu's lack of English made life difficult, although it did not affect his ability to teach, because art is truly a universal language and he could let his hands talk for him. Socially, however, "not having language was like being no different from an animal," Wu remembers. Alone, because he could not afford to bring his wife and teenage son to America, he faced anonymity, financial stress, and the prospect of starting from scratch after unqualified artistic success in China.

A track coach's generosity
To his surprise, Wu was championed by Bob Timmons, Jim Ryun's track coach. Timmons—who knows no Chinese and knew even less about art—took Wu under his wing, relating Wu's story to anyone who would listen. This supportive experience gave the artist, for the first time, the sense that God had plucked him out of China for a reason and would provide for him. He felt convicted that he should recreate his career in the States, and Timmons's generous spirit prompted him to choose the Christian God as his Savior.

In 1989, Wu's legal status in America was vouchsafed by Sen. Bob Dole and a Washington, D.C.- based sculpture association. In 1990, he brought his family to Kansas, and his wife, also an artist, eventually converted to Christianity too, as amazed as Wu by the hospitality and concern of Christian friends. Last January, Wu proudly became an American citizen in a ceremony presided over by Federal Judge Scott Wright, who in 1991 had commissioned Wu to create a bronze commemorative for the bicentennial of the Constitution's Bill of Rights.

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July 13 1998, Vol. 42, No. 8