First retrospective of the artist in the West made possible by partnership with the Nanjing Museum in China
The Cleveland Museum of Art presents Chinese Art in an Age of Revolution: Fu Baoshi (1904–1965) on view October 16, 2011–January 8, 2012.
Fu Baoshi (Chinese, 1904-1965). Gottwaldov, 1957. Album leaf, ink and color on paper; 48.7 × 57.1 cm. Nanjing Museum.
This international loan exhibition organized by the Cleveland Museum of Art features extraordinary works of art by the major modern Chinese master Fu Baoshi. It examines his artistic career through an overview of his work dating from the 1920s to 1965. By situating Fu Baoshi within the art-historical, social, political, and cultural contexts in which his art was created, a fascinating story is told of the artist’s struggle and political reconciliation in a time of war and revolution. It reveals the complexity of art and politics in China’s turbulent twentieth century. From traditional-style landscape and figure paintings to political artwork manifesting state ideology, a wide variety of work demonstrates the artist’s search for a unique artistic language that speaks for the self and the nation, providing an important insight into his use of native tradition to present modern Chinese art as distinct from Western and international socialist art. This exhibition is the first collaboration between the Cleveland Museum of Art and the Nanjing Museum, a venerable Chinese museum that currently houses the most significant and comprehensive collection of Fu Baoshi’s artwork donated by the Fu family.
Chinese Art in an Age of Revolution: Fu Baoshi (1904-1965) was organized by the Cleveland Museum of Art with the Nanjing Museum. Additional support is from the Asian Cultural Council.