Revisiting the 1945 Exhibition of the Modern Art Society: Rethinking the Emergence of the “New Literati Painting” During the War

The Second Joint Exhibition of the Modern Art Society, held in wartime Chengdu in March 1945, brought together more than one hundred works by twenty-seven artists, including Xie Qusheng, Ding Cong, Pang Xunqin, and Zhang Yangxi. Contemporary media described the exhibition as representing a form of “New Realism,” presenting what was seen as a new artistic direction and aesthetic tendency in wartime China.

Taking this exhibition as its point of departure, the lecture examines Pang Xunqin’s experimental paintings produced during the 1940s while living in China’s southwestern rear areas under Nationalist control. Drawing on the everyday lives of local communities, these works integrated artistic resources from both Chinese and Western traditions, as well as from historical and contemporary visual cultures, through a distinctly cross-cultural and cross-media approach. They articulated a dual commitment to documenting the realities of wartime civilian life while revitalising traditional folk arts. At the same time, they extended Pang’s earlier reflections on the modern transformation of literati painting, first developed during his years with the Storm Society in the early 1930s, positioning his practice within the broader phenomenon of the “New Literati Painting” that emerged in China’s wartime rear areas during the final years of the War of Resistance.