Half the Sky: Women in Chinese Art

Betty and John Soreng Gallery | August 2023 - July 2024

In celebration of the 50th anniversary of the University of Oregon’s Center for the Study of Women in Society (CSWS), the museum has organized a special exhibition entitled Half the Sky: Women in Chinese Art, referencing by Chairman Mao Zedong’s 1968 quotation “Women hold up half the sky,” meaning that they are the equal of men. The varied works on display attest to the remarkable resilience and creativity of women despite their relatively low status in traditional Chinese society due to Confucian and Buddhist value systems that deemed them to be inferior.

This installation draws primarily from the museum’s permanent collection and features Chinese paintings, calligraphy, prints, posters, photographs, and mixed-media works by and/or about women. Subjects include religious figures such as the Queen Mother of the

West and the Dragon King’s Daughter; dutiful female paragons of filial piety and women fulfilling gendered roles in silk production; historical figures and heroines of popular novels; anonymous beauties; modern role models disseminated through Communist propaganda; humanistic portrayals of anonymous photographic subjects, and futuristic visions. The artists represented include famed literati painter/calligrapher Guan Daosheng (12621319), modern ink painter Fang Zhaoling (1914-2006), political propaganda artists Li Fenglan (born 1933) and Zhou Sicong (19391996), inspirational Chinese-born American artist Hung Liu (19482021), avant-garde artist Xiao Lu (born 1962), and contemporary photographers Lin Tianmiao (born 1961) and Yu Hang (born 1981).

Half the Sky was organized by chief curator Anne Rose Kitagawa and will incorporate additional Chinese works over the course of the 2023-2024 academic year.