The Origins of Chinese Peasant Paintings - art history talk with Julie Segraves.

Curator and Executive Director of the Asian Arts Coordinating Council Julie Segraves explores the origins of China’s peasant paintings initially created during the 1958 political movement The Great Leap Forward. At that time, the Chinese communist government sent professional Chinese artists to the countryside to teach peasants the fundamentals of painting and drawing. Peasant painters from various provinces went onto fuse their own regional folk art influences (i.e., paper cuts, New Years prints, and textiles) with a selection of traditional Chinese painting techniques and Socialist Realist practices to establish this new school of painting.
Hu Xian peasant paintings, featured in this exhibit, became the Chinese model for peasant art and the school reached national and international prominence in the early to mid- nineteen seventies, and they paintings continue to be popular today. Folk textiles, papercuts and New Years prints and their impact on Hu Xian peasant paintings will also be discussed.