Date: 25 Nov 2025 - 28 Feb 2026
UMAG Online Lecture Series (2025-2026) presents four lectures exploring diverse aspects of East Asian art from the 19th to 20th century. Minerva Inwald examines Mao-era amateur art training in Socialist China and its ideological challenges. Haoyang Zhao revisits the circulation of Chinese paintings in 19th-century Britain in the context of the rare book trade, challenging the view that such works attracted little attention before the twentieth century. Yifan Li studies the Guohua painter Zhang Shanzi’s 1939–1940 US fundraising tour as a form of cultural diplomacy at the height of the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945). Finally, Sun Wei investigates the transformations and legacy of the post-transitional Japanese art world in the 1970s, highlighting its evolving nature after the supposed ‘death’ of the Avant-Garde.
For details and registration, please click on the date.
Lecture 1:
Managing Mass Creativity: Training Amateur Artists in Socialist China (25 November 2025)
Lecture 2:
‘Oriental Illuminated Manuscripts’: Rediscovering Chinese Paintings in the 19th-Century British Rare Book Trade (12 January 2026) (Upcoming)
Lecture 3:
Encountering the ‘Tiger Painter’: Zhang Shanzi’s Fundraising Tour in the United States, 1939–1940 (10 February 2026) (Upcoming)
Lecture 4:
After the Avant-Garde’s Death: The Post-Transitional Japanese Art World of the 1970s (February 2026) (Upcoming)