Left-wing Artist and the Art Market in the Twentieth Century China: Two Selling Exhibitions of Fu Luofei (1897-1971)

• In Event: "Selling” Art and Artists: How the Art Market Influences Behavior of Artists, Art Collectors, Museums, and the Production of Art Works

Abstract

The left-wing artists in the twentieth-century China have usually been considered to have nothing to do with the art market – They were a group of heroes who made art works simply and purely for the purpose of promoting their political ideals and were unconcerned with the money thing. This paper, however, is aiming to tell a different story with the example of Cantonese artist Fu Luofei (1897-1971).

In the existing studies, Fu has usually been categorized as a typical Chinese left-wing artist, and this paper picks two of his selling exhibitions (Hong Kong 1938 and Singapore 1948) to observe what kind of role the art market played in the art works and behaviors of such artist.

The 1938 exhibition was Fu’s first solo exhibition held soon after he returned to China from Europe, with strong ambition to save the country from the Japanese invasion; while the 1948 exhibition was his last solo exhibition before the establishment of the Communist China. Interestingly, for the former exhibition, art market was the media that Fu used to achieve his political purpose; but for the latter one, art market became the way that helped Fu bid farewell to his life as a promoter of political art. This paper will study the purpose, process and outcome of these two exhibitions, the style of art works shown, etc., so as to understand how the art market worked as a critical factor in the art and life of the left-wing artists in the early twentieth-century China.

Author

• Ying Chen, Independent Scholar