How ‘Bambi’ Got Its Look From 1,000-Year-Old Chinese Art

Daniel McDermon
New York Times
The Chinese-American artist Tyrus Wong, who died last week at 106, was an incredibly accomplished painter, illustrator, calligrapher and Hollywood studio artist. But as Margalit Fox wrote in her obituary for Mr. Wong, “because of the marginalization...

A Painting of China’s First Lady, Before a Rise to Stardom

Didi Kirsten Tatlow
New York Times
On the exhibition notes, the painting of Peng Liyuan by Jin Shangyi is identified only as “a well-known singer.”

25 Years After the Tiananmen Crackdown

Zhang Hongtu and Zhao Gang
Creative Time Reports
The Asian American Arts Centre responded to the June 1989 events with an open-call exhibition of artworks related to the uprising and its suppression called “China: June 4, 1989.” To commemorate the event's 25th anniversary, Creative Time...

James Cahill, Influential Authority on Chinese Art, Dies at 87

Graham Bowley
New York Times
James Cahill was one of the foremost authorities on Chinese art whose interpretations of Chinese painting for the West influenced generations of scholars.

Line by Line, the Artist Luo Ying Alters Chinese Tradition

Didi Kristen Tatlow
New York Times
Luo upturns centuries of tradition and offers a daring rethink of the meaning of traditional Chinese painting which has struggled for the past century with how to re-invent itself amid a haunting sense of being out of step with the modern world...

Zhang Huan’s Colorful Skull Paintings at the Pace Gallery

Barbara Pollack
New York Times
“Unlike Western masters, who will stick with one style their entire life until they reach maturity, I am in a constant state of transformation,” said Mr. Zhang, whose new oil paintings, which modeled after Tibetan masks, are a stark departure from...

Zao Wou-Ki, Seen As Modern Art Master, Dies At 92

Joyce Lau
New York Times
Zao Wou-ki, one of the few Chinese-born painters to be considered a master of 20th-century modern art in the West, died at his home in Switzerland on April 9, 2013. He was 92. 

The Hotan Project

Liu Xiaodong
ArtForum
Last May, Liu Xiaodong and a team of assistants traveled to Hotan, a town in the Xinjiang region of China, where he painted monumental portraits of local Uyghur jade miners while a documentarian filmed the entire process. The project is on view at...

Ancient Havens of Reflection and Renewal

Holland Cotter
New York Times
"Daily I stroll contentedly in my garden. There is a gate, but it is always shut." In the early fifth century, the Chinese poet Tao Yuanming, who called himself Tao Qian, Recluse Tao, thus described his life. Born into a politically...

An Art Star’s Creative Crisis

Kelly Crow
Wall Street Journal
For the past year, China's most expensive living artist hasn't been allowed to paint, doctor's orders. Zhang Xiaogang, age 54, a Beijing-based painter whose hypnotic portraits have topped $10 million at auction, recently suffered a...

Q&A: Shi Zhiying's "Infinite Lawn"

Christopher Moore
Randian
Shi Zhiying (b.1979; lives and works in Shanghai) is a painter known for her stark black-and-white paintings of rather uniform vistas — the wide, open sea, Zen sand gardens, blades of grass that occupy the viewer's horizons. In her latest...

A Master in the Shadows

Jonathan D. Spence from New York Review of Books
How should one assess the best ways to survive in a revolution? What exactly is the tipping point between obedience and outright sycophancy? When does one try to hold on to the values that gave meaning to one’s upbringing, and when is it best to...

Specters of a Chinese Master

Jonathan D. Spence from New York Review of Books
1.Luo Ping, who lived from 1733 to 1799, was perfectly placed by time and circumstance to view the shifts in fortune that were so prominent in China at that period. He grew up in Yangzhou, a prosperous city on the Grand Canal, just north of the...