ABSTRACT
Influenced by a Cold War mentality, the 1950s in China saw a distinct polar opposition of ideologies between socialism and capitalism, forming a simple narrative for the relationship of socialist China to its international context. Yet looking at this period more carefully, one discovers that many unusual details have been ignored, never thoroughly researched, or, indeed, never even mentioned.
An exhibition entitled “Seventy Years of British Oil Painting,” which came to China in 1960, is one of these curious, forgotten events. It was a large retrospective consisting of 71 paintings by 65 British artists, reflecting the achievements of British art from 1883 to 1959. It is astonishing that through this exhibition many representative painters of Impressionism, Expressionism and even abstract art, such as Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud, Rodrigo Moynihan, Paul Feiler, Alan Reynolds, William Scott and Ceri Richards, were introduced to the PRC much earlier than previously thought.
This British exhibition provides ample cause to challenge common conceptions concerning the cultural conditions in China in the 1950s and 1960s. How could it happen? What was its aim and how did Chinese audiences respond? Answering these questions reveals a more complex picture of socialist China during that period.
