SAN FRANCISCO STATE UNIVERSITY
SFSU Art Department Gallery
1600 Holloway Avenue
San Francisco, California
internet: www.sfsu.edu/~gallery/


• Chang Dai-chien in California
September 26 - November 20, 1999

Featuring more than 50 paintings and other materials, this exhibition is the first major US show of work by Chang Dai-chien (Zhang Daqian) since the 1991 exhibition Challenging the Past: The Paintings of Chang Dai-chien, organized by the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution. This exhibit commemorates the 100th anniversary of the artist's birth and is presented as part of SFSU's Centennial Celebration. The best-known Chinese painter of the 20th century, Chang Dai-chien (1899-1983) is often referred to as the "Picasso of China" and is believed to have produced nearly 30,000 original works. During nearly 30 years living in the Americas (Brazil and California), Chang developed stylistic innovations that revolutionized traditional Chinese painting. However, his work is rarely considered outside the context of this literati tradition. Chang was frequently forced to live abroad due to social crises in China and in the late 1960s Chang acquired two homes near Carmel on the Monterey Peninsula, which would become his principal residence for the next decade. His home became an important destination for artists from throughout Northern California, and he showed his work in exhibitions at several Bay Area venues. Chang was acquainted with many prominent California art figures, including Ansel Adams and James Cahill. This is also the first exhibition of works made by Chang during his residency on the Monterey Peninsula from 1967 to 1977, a period when he developed a "splash color and splash ink" technique and radical media handling evocative of Abstract Expressionism. A catalogue accompanies the exhibit.
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