Guseva, Anna V. Catalogue of the London Exhibition (1935), As a Source on the History of Collecting of Chinese Art in the 1930s

Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://dx.doi.org/10.18688/aa2111-10-70
Title Catalogue of the London Exhibition (1935), As a Source on the History of Collecting of Chinese Art in the 1930s
Author email aguseva@hse.ru
About author Guseva, Anna Valentinovna — Ph. D., associate professor. National Research University Higher School of Economics, St. Basmannaya ul. 21/4, 105066 Moscow, Russian Federation. ORCID: 0000-0002-7199-6103
In the section Oriental Art DOI10.18688/aa2111-10-70
Year 2021 Volume 11 Pages 864–880
Type of article RAR Index UDK 7.074 Index BBK 85.101
Abstract

From November 1935 to March 1936, the International Exhibition of Chinese Art took place in the halls of the Royal Academy of Arts in London. In 16 halls of the Burlington House, about 4,000 objects were exhibited. More than a dozen of countries and more than 200 private collectors participated in its organisation and lent objects for the exhibition. Besides, a third of the items were lent by the Chinese government. The exhibition was attended by over 400,000 visitors and every fourth person bought its catalogue. In terms of number of items and participated persons and institutions, the London Exhibition remains unprecedented to this day. It is difficult to overestimate its importance for the development of art historian studies in Chinese art.

The Catalogue of International Exhibition of Chinese Art, 1935–1936, (London: Royal Academy of Arts, 1935) remains one of the key sources of information about the exhibition. Even though mentions of the catalogue could be found in numeral sources that in one way or another write about the exhibition or the objects exhibited there, no analysis of the structure and content of the catalogue has been carried out. Meanwhile, understanding of the type and specifics of information presented in the catalogue could allow not only to enrich our knowledge about different aspects of exhibitions organization during the 1930s but also to understand better some features of the different processes associated with collecting of Chinese art in the middle of the 20th century.
Keywords
Reference Guseva, Anna V. Catalogue of the London Exhibition (1935), As a Source on the History of Collecting of Chinese Art in the 1930s. Actual Problems of Theory and History of Art: Collection of articles. Vol. 11. Eds A. V. Zakharova, S. V. Maltseva, E. Iu. Staniukovich-Denisova. — St. Petersburg: St. Petersburg Univ. Press, 2021, pp. 864–880. ISSN 2312-2129. http://dx.doi.org/10.18688/aa2111-10-70
Publication Article language russian
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