Many Colors
Many Colors. Xiao Shufang paints tulips in the summer of 1978.
This painting, which at first glance appears to be a simple still life of tulips, is in fact a expression regarding major changes in China's artistic environment. How do we know this? Tulips are not native to China, which means the artist intentionally chose a foreign topic. This would have taken some courage in 1978, just two years after the end of the Cultural Revolution. This is one of a series of tulip paintings Xiao Shufang did to celebrate China's new openness to the West.
Xiao Shufang was born in Zhongshan, Guangdong province, in southern China, and studied painting at the Beijing Art School and Nanjing Central University with such leading artists as Xu Beihong (1895-1953). Between 1937 and 1940 Xiao lived in England, where she studied watercolor and sculptureùand quite likely saw tulips. She returned to China and, as with many foreign-trained artists of her generation, faced many challenges, particularly during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976). In the 1980s and 1990s she reemerged as one of China's leading artists and taught at the Central Art Academy in Beijing.
