Founding the Nation marks the rapid transformation of mainstream art into propaganda during the Mao era.
Modern China
To the Front! is a widely circulated print that sought to denounce the inaction of those in power.
Hu Yichuan, To the Front!
In this captivating oil painting, Xu Beihong recounts an ancient legend that pictures the heroic 3rd-century B.C.E. prince Tian Heng at a pivotal moment.
Xu Beihong, Tian Heng and His Five ...
In Flying in the Rain, Gao Jianfu pictured a squadron of biplanes emerging from cloudy skies in loose formation.
Gao Jianfu, Flying in the Rain
Conceptual artist, curator and entrepreneur Xu Zhen is a leading figure among the younger generation of Chinese contemporary artists.
Xu Zhen – ‘Artists Change the Way ...
Xu Bing’s text is illegible—even to those who can read Chinese.
Xu Bing, Book from the Sky
How can the destruction of an artifact also be an act of preservation?
Ai Weiwei, Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn
Luo Zhongli's Father remains one of the most revered paintings from this period in China’s history.
Luo Zhongli, Father
The artwork is based on a well-known Chinese folktale about a group of monkeys attempting to capture the moon.
Xu Bing, Monkeys Grasp for the Moon
This is an iconic photo of Cixi, the Empress Dowager of Qing China, in the early 1900s
Xunling, The Empress Dowager Cixi with foreign ...
From the end of the twentieth century to today, rapid improvements in the economy, increasing globalization, and growing status as a major political and military power have continued to significantly alter life, including in the cultural sphere, ensuring China’s place in the contemporary art field.
Modern China (1912–present), an introduction
How modern is this Chinese painting? Of course, it’s a trick question; it all depends on what you mean by "Chinese," or by "modern."
Wang Zhen, Buddhist Sage
Hai Bo not only documents the economic and environmental changes of contemporary China, but conveys the impossibility of ever returning to the place of one’s memories
Hai Bo, Untitled No. 36
Au Ho-nien looks to Western realism and the practice of sketching from life as a way to revitalize Chinese art.
An interview with Au Ho-nien
Can a photograph be appreciated in the manner of a Chinese painting? "Father of Asian photography" Lang Jingshan asked this question nearly a century ago.
Lang Jingshan and early Chinese photography
When thousands of schoolchildren died in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, Ai Weiwei refused to stay silent.
Ai Weiwei, Remembering and the Politics of ...
Promoting Mao as a revolutionary leader, this portrait melds Chinese landscape convention with socialist realism.
Liu Chunhua, Chairman Mao en Route to ...
Over 100 million porcelain seeds filled the Tate’s Turbine Hall in a critique of conformity and censorship.
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