Kindness from Bosom Friends: Friendship between Qi Baishi and His Mentors and Friends
- show time：2020-11-13 to 2021-01-31
- Organizer：Beijing Fine Art Academy, Liaoning Provincial Museum, Mei Lanfang Memorial Hall, Xu Beihong Memorial Hall, CAFA Art Museum
- venue：Beijing Fine Art Academy
2020 is destined to be an unordinary year. Under the fetters of COVID-19, when everyone maintains social distancing, the sincerity and warmth between friends seem invaluable. From the perspective of “friendship”, the Beijing Fine Art Academy launched a special exhibition themed on Kindness from Bosom Friends: Friendship between Qi Baishi and His Mentors and Friends. It was co-sponsored by the Beijing Fine Art Academy in cooperation with Liaoning Provincial Museum, Mei Lanfang Memorial Hall, Xu Beihong Memorial Hall, CAFA Art Museum and other cultural institutes and art institutions. It was selected among projects of “2020 National Art Museum Collection Exhibition Season by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism.”
Since Beijing Fine Art Academy launched the second round of Qi Baishi’s exhibitions in 2015, it has successively planned and launched themed exhibitions on Qi Baishi’s paintings of grass and insects, calligraphy, landscape paintings and figure paintings. This exhibition does not continue the previous planning concepts, but it centers around how to link Qi Baishi’s “surroundings” and “positioning” of him from an objective perspective. Therefore, Qi Baishi was placed in the cultural history of the Republic of China and research was conducted around his friendship within the art circle, thus six key figures closely related to Qi Baishi’s life and artistic development were selected: Hu Qinyuan, Wang Kaiyun, Chen Shizeng, Ruiguang, Mei Lanfang, and Xu Beihong, focusing on Qi Baishi from the perspective of others. This exhibition brings together more than 100 sets of paintings, calligraphy and literature works by Qi Baishi as well as his teachers and friends collected by various museums and institutions. These paintings are full of affection, and the letters with vivid words tell the audience the stories of the artistic exchanges between Qi Baishi and his mentors and friends, adding a warmth to the modern art history while triggering new thinking in research and development in contemporary art.
