EACS-2016. Book of Abstracts

Art, Archeology & Material Culture 21st Biennial Conference of the European Association for Chinese Studies 80 Huang Ying-Ling Michelle (Lingnan University) Expressing an Alternative Voice: The Role of ChineseWomen Painters in Mid-Twentieth Century Britain Key words: Fang Zhaoling, Chang Chien-Ying, Chinese Painting, Exhibitions, Museums, Galleries In the 1930s, Chinese artists became active in developing cultural exchange with British scholars, col- lectors and curators through organizing exhibitions in London. For several decades, the display of Chinese paintings in British museums and galleries was dominated by male artists frommainland China, Hong Kong and those resided in Europe and America. It was not until the 1950s that a few Chinese women painters were able to make their work more accessible to English audiences, offering an alternative voice in the art of modern China from a feminine perspective. This paper examines the role and contribution of two prominent Chinese-born London-based art- ists, Chang Chien-Ying (1913–2004) and Fang Zhaoling (1914–2006), in promoting an appreciation of modern Chinese painting in Britain. I will examine their exhibition activities from 1951 to 1980, while analyzing the subject matter, techniques and artistic ideas of their works in British collections. I will also explore Chang’s and Fang’s connections with local curators and dealers who contributed to providing exhibition opportunities, including their solo and group shows held at the Royal Academy of Arts, Leicester Galleries, Grosvenor Gallery and Huge Moss Gallery in London, as well as the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh. While Chang Chien-Ying moved to London in 1946, together with her husband Fei Chengwu (1911–2000) who was also an artist, I argue that Fang Zhaoling, who studied at Oxford in 1956 after becoming a widow, was more successful in promoting her work to public museums and leading galleries across Britain, making herself the most well-known Chinese woman artist to the British audience. Khayutina Maria (Institute for Sinology, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München) Forms of Regional and Cross-Regional Interactions in Early China during the ca. 11–8 cc. BCE in the Light of Bronze Inscriptions Key words: Exchange, Bronze Inscriptions, Western Zhou, Complex Interaction Material objects excavated from tombs, hoards, or settlements often witness that communities separated from each other by various distances were involved into relationships of exchange. Goals and mechanisms of exchange can be studied based on the analysis of the spatial relationships between these communities and of their social organization as it is reflected in the archaeological record. In the case of Early China, archaeologists adjust their observations to the traditional historiography, seldom critically reflecting on the ambiguous reliability of transmitted texts. This applies, in par- ticular, to the so-called “Western Zhou period” (1046–771 BCE), idealized as the Golden Age of the centralized authority by Confucian literati and nationalist historians alike. In the result, phenomena of exchange observable during this period are being often understood within the center-periphery paradigm. Fortunately, the availability of written documents among excavated materials makes it possible to cross-check these historiographically-based assumptions and to reveal forms of exchange that would stay unknown otherwise. The present paper discusses several finds of inscribed bronzes on sites dating from the ca. 11–8 cc. BCE, testifying to the diversity of forms of exchange and the complexity of political and cultural relationships in Early China. For their interpretation, it suggests combining several theoretical frameworks into a “complex interaction” model, as suggested by Dina Barnes for the study of Early Japan. Komarovskaya Polina (St. Petersburg State University) “Old Party Secretary” (1973): Origins and Place in the Official Artistic Culture of PRC Key words: Liu Zhide, “Old Party Secretary”, PRC, Chinese peasant painting, nongminhua