In June and July 2023, PhD candidate Yifan Li traveled to China to conduct dissertation research in Hong Kong, Nanjing, and Beijing, where he visited museums, explored sites, collected materials, and networked with scholars, curators, and family members of artists. 

While in Nanjing, Yifan viewed the exhibition “Renascent: Landscape Transformation of Chinese Painters in Jiangsu, 1949-1966” at the Jiangsu Provincial Art Museum. He was happy to closely examine several paintings he analyzes in the chapter centering around artists affiliated with the Jiangsu Chinese Painting Academy. Yifan also shared his research on the Nanjing Yangzi River Bridge in a forthcoming documentary about Nanjing and the Yangzi River produced by the Nanjing TV Station.  

The highlights of Yifan’s sojourn in Beijing include visits to the exhibition series in celebration of the 60^th anniversary of the National Art Museum of China and an exhibition dedicated to the modern painter Li Hu at Tsinghua University Art Museum. While there, he was thrilled to study some of his case studies, including Ai Zhongxin’s monumental oil painting On to Ürümqi (1954) and Qian Songyan’s ink painting The Fields of Changshu (1964), in person. 

This trip was made possible by a Cathleen M. Murnane Travel Scholarship, as well as financial support from the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation and the East and Inner Asia Council of the Association for Asian Studies.