Steppin' Out

Cover Story

Yu Jianhua's 1946 painting 'Solitary Scholar by a Stream' is one of 30 works from the Chang family collection featured in a new exhibit at the Cantor Arts Center.

Art and Transition

Exhibit illuminates an important era of Chinese art

By Heather Zimmerman

Chaotic times in history often coincide with the creation of some great art, as a new exhibit at the Cantor Arts Center demonstrates.

"Chinese Painting on the Eve of the Communist Revolution" is an exhibition of paintings made in the years before the founding of the People's Republic of China. The exhibition runs July 19-Oct. 29 at the Cantor Arts Center, Palm Drive at Museum Way, on the Stanford University campus.

The exhibit's 30 paintings are on loan from the family of Chang Shu-ch'i, who was a renowned painter and educator in China during the early 20th century. Chang made several government-sponsored goodwill trips to the United States, one of which included the presentation of a painting to President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Chang moved to the Bay Area in the late 1940s.

Chang was a respected member of the painting societies that came to prominence in pre-revolutionary China as a way for artists to increase their visibility and further their artistic education. Society members often also became influential teachers.

Chang was considered a master of painting flowers and birds, and "Chinese Painting" features some of his works with those motifs, as well as landscape and figure paintings. The exhibit also includes pieces by Chang's friends and colleagues, many of whom were also esteemed artists.

Admission is free. For more information, call 650.723.4177 or visit http://museum.stanford.edu.