Fondation Giacometti

 Jin Taotao (also known as Jin Zhang, 1884–1939) and Pan Yuliang (1895–1977) were two Chinese artists whose careers illustrate contrasting experiences of the Paris art scene in the early 20th century. Jin Taotao, the wife of a diplomat, practised painting and calligraphy in a resolutely traditionalist approach, faithful to classical Chinese aesthetics. Pan Yuliang, on the other hand, received a government scholarship to study Western-style painting at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, thus embarking on a journey of learning and adaptation to European artistic canons.
 
Their trajectories allow us to examine the diversity of aesthetic and identity responses of Chinese women artists in the face of transnational modernity. By placing them in dialogue with contemporary French artists such as Suzanne Valadon and Émilie Charmy, this lecture questions notions of otherness, race and gender identity in the context of early 20th-century transcultural modernism.