Exhibition of Art Development in the Republic of China 中華民國美術發展展覽專輯
Taichung City: Taiwan Museum of Art 台灣省立美術館, 1989. Very Good. Item #11685
Taichung City: Taiwan Museum of Art, 1989. This is the second printing from March of 1989 of the catalog first published in June of 1988. Quarto (slipcase 35.5x26.5x4.5cm; volume 34x26x4cm); 430pp. Densely illustrated in color throughout. Text almost entirely in Chinese and intended for Chinese usage; official introductory statements and a few minor technical matters in parallel English. Uncommon in retail.
Illustrated slipcase with black and gold lettering. Illustrated volume boards duplicate the slipcase visually. Slipcase shows rubbing to upper and lower edges (visible in our photographs) but remains very solid. Volume itself shows signs of reverent handling, with a slight yellowing to lower half of rear panel (inexplicable, given the slipcase). Binding and textblock otherwise unmarred and unmarked.
This is the catalog of the exhibition which opened in 1988 the then Taiwan Provincial Museum of Art, now conventionally Anglicized as the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts. Subsections are: Chinese Traditional Paintings; Glue Painting; Oil Painting; Watercolor; Print Art; Calligraphy; and Sculpture.
The exhibition, seeking to establish an art tradition of its own for Taiwan (as opposed to that of the mainland), is full of surprises. Paintings and sculptures veer from 19th century illustrative realism (somewhere between Tissot and N.C. Wyeth) to modernist abstraction. Revered Chinese traditions are intermingled with Taiwanifications of everything you ever saw in your History of Western Art class.
A fascinating snapshot of cultural and geo-political transmission, homage, and assertive independence.
Price: $100.00