Guan Zilan

Background

Guan Zilan was born in January 1903 in Shanghai, China. Her parents, who were successful textile merchants involved in textile design, gave her an artistic education from a young age.

Education

Guan studied painting at Shanghai Shenzhou Girls' School and then graduated from the University of Shanghai, Western Painting, under the instruction of Chen Baoyi in 1927. That same year she went to Japan for advanced studies and enrolled in Cultural Institute of Tokyo, Japan.

Career

In the 1920s and the 1930s, Chinese women who had successful careers in Japan attracted significant attention from Japanese media. Guan made headlines as a representative of the "modern girl" and was projected as a model beauty of that time.

Guan Zilan returned to Shanghai in 1930 and became one of the first artists to bring Fauvism to China. She and her fellow female painter Pan Yuliang became favorites in the art world of the young Republic of China. Women artists trained in the Western style, such as Guan and Pan, captured the fascination of the public and were accepted as the embodiment of modernity.

Guan's paintings and portraits were repeatedly published in the popular magazine Liangyou (The Young Companion). She debuted in the magazine in 1927, when it published works selected from her graduation exhibition at China Art University. In 1930, when Guan held a solo exhibition in Shanghai, Liangyou dedicated a full page to her paintings from the exhibition. A photograph of her playing the mandolin was chosen for the magazine's cover.

During the Second Sino-Japanese War, when eastern China, including Shanghai, was occupied by the Empire of Japan, Guan's former teacher Chen Baoyi refused to work for the Japanese and fell into penury. Guan supported him financially until his death in 1945.

Zilan stayed in Shanghai after the Communists took over China in 1949 and lived on Liyang Road in Hongkou District. She worked at the Shanghai Research Institute of Culture and History and became a member of the China Artists Association, changing her artistic style to conform with the socialist realism dominant in Communist China.

She stopped painting altogether after the eruption of the Cultural Revolution in 1966. She was gradually forgotten by the Chinese public, although her "Portrait of Miss L." was selected for exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City in 1998. On June 30, 1986, Guan Zilan died of a heart attack at her home. Her ashes were scattered in West Lake of Huang Zhou City - one of the most beautiful lakes that inspired most of her landscape paintings.

Achievements

• Guan Zilan was one of the first artists to introduce Fauvism to China and was highly known for applying Western painting style to Chinese traditional subjects. Her most famous work was "Portrait of Miss L.", created in 1929.

Works

More photos

• painting

  • Streetview of Shanghai

  • Sun Flowers

  • Portrait of a Girl

  • Still Life: Flowers

  • Still Life

  • Self Portrait

  • The Foreign-style House

  • Streetview of Shanghai

  • Portrait of the first Chinese female model

  • Spring Dawn on the South Bank of river

  • Water Lily

  • Spring

Views

Guan was deeply influenced by Fauvism while applying Western avant-garde painting style to traditional Chinese subjects.

Membership

Guan Zilan was the member of Shanghai Research Institute of Culture and History and China Artist Association.

Interests

• Artists

  Henri Matisse, Maurice de Vlaminck, Les Fauves

Connections

Guan got married when she was 35. Her husband died when she was 55. Guan Zilan had a daughter named Liang Yawen, and a grandson Ye Qi, who is a photographer.

Daughter:

Liang Yawen

Grandson:

Ye Qi

tutor:

Chen Baoyi

tutor:

Hong Ye