Eastern Art Online, Yousef Jameel Centre for Islamic and Asian Art

Ashmolean − Eastern Art Online, Yousef Jameel Centre for Islamic and Asian Art

Art in China in the 1960s and 1970s

(from 15th Apr 2011 until 15th Jan 2012)

Explore woodblock prints and ink paintings from around the period of the Cultural Revolution in China.

Detail of Dancing: Highland Barley Series No. 2, China, 1961 (Museum no. EA2007.80)
The Return of the Graduatefront

© The artist

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The Return of the Graduate

  • Description

    The people’s smiling faces show traces of the style usually seen in the Cultural Revolution. However, this print also subtly conveys a new atmosphere, and it quickly became one of the most published prints of the late 1970s across China. This work is often regarded as a depiction of the artist’s own experience. Li Xiu is one of an extremely small number of Yi minority female printmakers.

  • Details

    show all
    Associated place
    Asia › China (place of creation)
    Date
    1977
    Artist/maker
    Li Xiu (born 1943) (printmaker)
    Material and technique
    multi-block woodcut, printed with oil-based ink
    Dimensions
    sheet 97 x 79.2 cm (height x width)
    print 85.7 x 71.6 cm (height x width)
    Material index
    processed material › paper
    Technique index
    printed › relief print › woodcut › colour woodcut
    Object type index
    visual representation › print
    No. of items
    1
    Credit line
    Purchased, 2007.
    Accession no.
    EA2007.43

  • Further reading

    Weimin He, and Shelagh Vainker, Chinese Prints 1950-2006 in the Ashmolean Museum (Oxford: Ashmolean Museum, 2007), no. 47 on p. 56, illus. p. 56

Past Exhibition

see (1)

Location

    • currently in research collection

Objects are sometimes moved to a different location. Our object location data is usually updated on a monthly basis. Contact the Jameel Study Centre if you are planning to visit the museum to see a particular object on display, or would like to arrange an appointment to see an object in our reserve collections.

 

Publications online

  • Chinese Prints 1950-2006 in the Ashmolean Museum by Weimin He and Shelagh Vainker

    Chinese Prints 1950-2006 in the Ashmolean Museum

    I have depicted mountains, water, yet what I have depicted is in fact myself.

    Li Xiu graduated from the Middle School attached to the Yunnan Academy of Fine Arts in 1964. She further studied at the Department of Fine Art of the Guangxi College of Arts and graduated in 1968. Li is one of an extremely small number of Yi minority female printmakers. The rich mystical land and the colourful life of ethnic minority peoples in Yunnan have provided inspiration for her art. Her work The Return of the Graduate has exercised both political and social influence since the 1970s. From the late 1980s, her woodcuts gradually evolved from the representative depiction of figures into the construction of landscapes, and her most recent work expresses a mystical atmosphere.
Notice

Objects from past exhibitions may have now returned to our stores or a lender. Click into an individual object record to confirm whether or not an object is currently on display. Our object location data is usually updated on a monthly basis, so please contact the Jameel Study Centre if you are planning to visit the museum to see a particular Eastern Art object.

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