November 29, 1977
The first exhibition to be shown in the United States of Peasant Paintings from Huhsien County of the People’s Republic of China will be on view at The Brooklyn Museum, Eastern Parkway and Washington Avenue, from December 17 through January 22, 1978. Versions of the show have been exhibited during the past two years in Paris, London, Stockholm, and Toronto. The present exhibition of 80 recent gouaches is on loan from the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries in Peking. Following its Brooklyn premiere, the show will travel to San Francisco, Chicago, Los Angeles and Houston; the tour is sponsored by the U.S. - China Peoples Friendship Association.
Painted by members of rural communes in Huhsien County, Shensi Province, about 600 miles southwest of Peking, the works shown here were completed between 1972 and 1977. The artists are, in fact, agricultural workers who paint in their spare time. They sketch during lunch hours, work breaks, and in the evenings. Other villagers are invited to watch the work in progress and suggest revisions. The paintings are then reproduced on the walls, doorposts and animal pens of the villages of Huhsien.
Intended as a popular social art to portray communal activities of everyday life, the paintings, which are gouaches on paper ranging in size from about 1 by 1 1/2 feet to 3 by 4 1/2 feet, depict group work, sports, educational activity, political discussion or military training. Individual styles are based on an amalgam of traditional Chinese landscape and portrait painting, folk art, and the expression of current attitudes through bright colors and energetic composition.
The exhibition is scheduled to travel to the Chinese Cultural Center, San Francisco (February 8 - March 31); the Art Institute of Chicago (April 15 - May 28); the Otis Art Institute, Los Angeles (June 18 - July 30); and to the Contemporary Arts Institute, Houston (August 14 - September 24).
The Brooklyn Museum, closed Monday and Tuesday, is open to the public Wednesday through Saturday from 10 A.M. to 5 P.M., Sunday from noon to 5, and holidays 1 to 5. Admission is free.
PLEASE NOTE: A delegation from the People’s Republic of China, including Chen Ta-yuan, Executive Member of the Council of the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries; Chou Wen-te, peasant painter with work in the exhibition; and Su Kuang, interpreter, will be in New York prior to the opening of the exhibition. Their schedule has not been fixed. For information as to their availability to the media, contact Herbert Bronstein, or Jay Ells, Public Relations, The Brooklyn Museum, 638-5000, ext. 330, 1 or 2.
Brooklyn Museum Archives. Records of the Department of Public Information. Press releases, 1971 - 1988. 1977, 027. View Original
