Shelley Hawks lecture, “Chinese Painting and Calligraphy as an Art of Resistance Then and Now” (Nov. 8, 2019)

The Boston University Center for the Study of Asia
invites you to explore the interplay between art and politics in the upcoming lecture:

Chinese Painting and Calligraphy
as an Art of Resistance Then and Now

Shelley Drake Hawkes

Middlesex Community College (Bedford and Lowell, MA)

Friday, November 8, 2019
at 121 Bay State Road, Boston University, Boston 02215

Light lunch will be provided!

About the speaker: 

Dr. Shelley Drake Hawks is  a historian who teaches courses on art history and world history at Middlesex Community College, in Bedford and Lowell, MA. She earned the M.A. degree in Regional Studies-East Asia at Harvard University in 1986, and a doctorate in Chinese history at Brown University in 2003. She has previously taught at Rhode Island School of Design, Boston University, University of Massachusetts, Boston and Mount Holyoke College. 

Her book, The Art of Resistance: Painting by Candlelight in Mao’s China (University of Washington Press, 2017) tells the story of seven artists who suffered greatly during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (1966-1976).  The artists Shi Lu 石鲁 (1919-1982), Feng Zikai 丰子恺 (1898-1975), Pan Tianshou 潘天寿 (1897-1971), Li Kuchan 李苦禅 (1898-1983), Li Keran 李可染 (1907-1989), Ding Cong 丁聪 (1916-2009) and Huang Yongyu 黄永玉 (b. 1924), stood up for creative autonomy. All found opportunities to maintain their connection to art despite the political and social turmoil around them. Their stories reveal a fierce personal independence rooted in Chinese art and philosophy.

For additional details about Prof. Hawks’ research, see http://www.shelleydrakehawks.com/and https://uwapress.uw.edu/book/9780295741956/the-art-of-resistance/