All posts tagged: Chen Danqing

Chen Danqing

Published by Artomity Magazine

By Diana d’Arenberg Parmanand / Shanghai-born artist Chen Danqing was only 14 when he started painting Mao propaganda posters in the 1970s. “I painted more than 100 portraits of Chairman Mao on the street walls in Shanghai and its suburbs and also on factory iron sheets,” he says. “During that time, there were millions of amateur and professional painters in China who painted millions of portraits of Mao Zedong.” Sent to live in the countryside in Jiangxi province for five years as part of a nationwide programme of forced collectivisation during the Cultural Revolution, Chen painted what was prescribed in the socialist realist style. The posters were part of a progression in a career that would eventually earn him accolades as a painter in China. After the Cultural Revolution he was admitted to the China Central Academy of Fine Arts, graduating in 1980 and staying on to teach until he moved to New York City a couple of years later. It was during this period that he painted his series of seven Tibetan paintings, which would …

Chen Danqing at Tang Contemporary Art Hong Kong

Published by Artomity Magazine

May 24 – Jun 29, 2019 Tang Contemporary Art is pleased to present Chen Danqing: Disguise and Paintings from Life, a solo exhibition of oil paintings by Chinese-American artist Chen Danqing. The show marks Chen’s first major solo presentation in Hong Kong and his first exhibition with the gallery. Curated by Cui Cancan, it showcases Chen’s latest figure paintings from live models.  Chen Danqing is one of the most important painters in the history of Chinese contemporary art. Born in Shanghai in 1953, he created propaganda posters as a teenager depicting the feats of Mao Zedong. He took an interest in painting at a young age, constantly studying works by Western artists to improve his technique. Chen was particularly influenced by the works of the Realist painter Jean Francois Millet whose works were featured in the group exhibition Exhibition of French Rural Landscape Paintings from the 19th Century at the National Art Museum of China in 1978. In 1976, Chen visited Tibet and painted Harvest Fields Flooded by Tears that earned him early recognition. His growing interest in Tibetan people and their life …