Drawing from Life Sketching and Socialist Realism in the People’s Republic of China

Reviews

"Marvelous. . . . Drawing from Life offers both essential and sophisticated conceptual understandings of the categories of mass art that promise to enrich a multitude of medium-specific examinations.?"—Art Journal

"Christine Ho's Drawing from Life is a must-read for anyone working on Chinese modern art or on the transnational histories of realism and socialist culture. It is an important and intellectually stimulating book that substantially deepens our understanding of the multifaceted nature of art production in socialist China and successfully counters the notion that art was merely a political tool by showing how artists explored exciting new ground along their sketching tours."—Sehepunkte

"Drawing From Life is a brilliantly original and richly textured account of the complex changes that swept through China’s art world in the years following the establishment of the new government in 1949. This eye-opening book filled with discoveries moves the state of scholarship on art in the People's Republic of China decisively forward."—Julia F. Andrews, Distinguished University Professor of the History of Art, The Ohio State University

"By examining complicated debates that swirled around the ubiquitous artistic practice of sketching, Christine Ho lays out a new narrative about the conflicts, contradictions, and compromises that created China’s modern art world. The book goes far deeper into the artistic practices and theory of the early PRC than any publications by previous scholars and heralds a novel and compelling way of approaching the art world of Mao-period China."—Kuiyi Shen, Professor of Asian Art History, Theory, and Criticism, University of California, San Diego