Yang Weizhen (楊維楨, 1296-1370) was a calligrapher of the late Yuan Dynasty. His courtesy name was Lianfu (廉夫) and pseudonym Tieya (鐵崖). He was from today’s Shaoxing (紹興), the same place that gathered a lot of fame from the Jin calligraphy master Wang Xizhi (王羲之).
In his youth, his father built a library for him in the Tieya Mountain (thus the pseudonym) and made him study very hard. Yang Weizhen obtained the presented scholar (進士) degree in 1327 and served as an official in Hangzhou. During the chaotic period near the end of the Yuan Dynasty, Yang spent years in retirement in the Fuchun Mountains area, which is close to Hangzhou and Shaoxing. Besides being a Confucian scholar, Yang was also inclined towards Daoism. Among his friends were the painters Huang Gongwang (黃公望) and Ni Zan (倪瓚).
