A retrospective exhibition of the works of Liu Shiming, an acclaimed Chinese sculptor, is ongoing in Henan Art Museum, and it is receiving streams of visitors.

Jointly organised by Henan Art Museum, China Sculpture Research Centre, and Sculptural Art Institute at the Central Academy of Fine Arts, “Dream Back Home: Liu Shiming’s Solo Exhibition of Sculptures” gathers more than 120 masterpieces produced in Liu Shiming’s 60-year-long journey in art. The exhibition is divided into three themes, namely, “Reviewing Tradition”, “Rural Sentiments”, and “Urban Impressions”.

Xu Beihong’s best student

Liu Shiming was born in 1926. In 1946, he was admitted to the Sculpture Department of National Art School in Beiping. He was among the first group of students personally recruited by President Xu Beihong. In this art school, which was the first in China to set up professional education in art, music and drama, Liu became one of the best students that showed talent at a young age. In the following six decades, he has indeed made brilliant achievements. In 1949, his graduation work, Measuring the Land, was the first sculpture to be exhibited abroad after the founding of the People’s Republic of China, and was later collected by the Czechoslovak National Museum (now the Czech National Museum). Since then, outstanding works were frequently produced.

Liu lived and worked in Henan for many years. The rich history and culture plus his own life experience there have provided a steady stream of materials and inspiration for his creation. He has forged an indissoluble bond with Henan, which is evident in the many sculptures of his that show Henan elements. In this exhibition, Liu’s works quietly interpret his love for Henan. Among them, Boatmen on the Yellow River and a few other works have been donated to the Henan Art Museum.

Plain and warm works created in his old age

At different stages of his life, Liu’s sculptures present different tones. In his youth, it was about the high spirits and romance, which were represented by Measure the Land (1949) and Splitting the Mountains to Let the Water Flow (1958). Since the 1960s, major changes took place in Liu’s life. He stayed away from Beijing and lived arduously in Henan and Hebei. In the 1970s, he was seconded to the National Museum of Chinese History (now the National Museum of China). In 1980, he returned to the Central Academy of Fine Arts to teach. That became a prolific period for Liu. The works created during his middle age conveyed bitterness and persistence. Representative pieces include Pot with Three Female Figures, Tiger Carrying Woman, Farmhouse, Ansai Waist Drummer, A Ferry and Boatmen on the Yellow River (aka. Boatmen on the Yellow River), and Henan Zhuizi.

In his later years, the style tends to be plain and tender. Love and family become a major theme, as seen in Lovers, In Love, Mother Returns, Performer Backstage, and so forth. They are vivid, simple, and poetic.

Liu Shiming’s sculptures, in a slowed down rhythm, are close to the original appearance of the life he has experienced. There are the various delicate feelings, and the daily life and family love of ordinary people. Savouring his works, the frustration and bitterness present in the difficult life of the people at the bottom of society that can be gradually sensed. How Liu displays social changes with his keen eyes can be observed. His works are vivid, simple and poetic, which recounts the original life he has refined.

Inheriting and developing the great tradition of Chinese folk art, Liu Shiming’s sculptural art commands an irreplaceable position in the development of Chinese sculpture in the 20th century. Yin Shuangxi, Director of the China Sculpture Research Centre, commented, it presents “Life, tradition and passion/Belief, spirit, and soul”.