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

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Village Schoolfront

© The artist

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Village School

  • Description

    In this print, the artist depicts village school children listening in a class. The hoes and bamboo hats in the sunshine outside indicate that school children also take part in agricultural work for the state farm. Xu Kuang was sent to Chongqing in 1958 as an anti-socialist ‘rightist’ and later primarily worked as a professional artist in Sichuan Artists’ Association. Xu has been regarded as a key figure in the Sichuan School of printmaking, specializing in monochrome print.

  • Details

    show all
    Associated place
    Asia › China (place of creation)
    Date
    1964
    Artist/maker
    Xu Kuang (born 1938) (printmaker)
    Material and technique
    two-block woodcut, printed with oil-based ink
    Dimensions
    sheet 63 x 70 cm (height x width)
    print 43.2 x 57 cm (height x width)
    Material index
    processed material › paper
    Technique index
    printed › relief print › woodcut
    Object type index
    visual representation › print
    No. of items
    1
    Credit line
    Purchased, 2007.
    Accession no.
    EA2007.63

  • Further reading

    Weimin He, and Shelagh Vainker, Chinese Prints 1950-2006 in the Ashmolean Museum (Oxford: Ashmolean Museum, 2007), no. 41 on p. 50, illus. p. 50

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

    Art is derived from life, but it does not equal life. Art, from content to form, should be healthy and noble, bringing people spiritual strength and enjoyment of beauty.

    Xu Kuang studied art at the private Tao Xingzhi Academy of Arts in Shanghai between 1951 and 1954 and then entered the Middle School attached to the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, where he learnt socialist realist theory and Soviet style drawing and painting. He was sent to Chongqing in 1958 as a Rightist and later primarily worked as a professional artist in the Sichuan Artists’ Association for nearly four decades. He brings realistic chiaroscuro drawing style into his woodcut technique, which produces subtle tones, whilst the overall form has a sculptural quality. His favourite subjects are mostly Tibetan or Yi ethnic minorities, and his work won many prizes in official exhibitions during the 1970s and 1980s.

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