Brush and Shutter: Early Photgraphy in China April 1, 2011

Brought to Asia by Europeans in the early 1840s, photography was both a witness to the dramatic cultural changes taking place in China and a catalyst to further modernization. Employing both ink brush and camera, Chinese painters adapted the new medium, grafting it onto traditional aesthetic conventions. Brush and Shutter: Early Photography in China includes images ranging from an 1859 portrait of a Chinese family made near Shanghai to glass slides of revolutionary soldiers created in 1911 in Shanxi province. The exhibition features works by largely unknown Chinese photographers, hand-painted photographs, expansive panoramas, and rare gouache and oil paintings made for export.