Author

Amanda Vorce

Date of Award

2020

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Humanities

First Advisor

Brion, Katherine

Area of Concentration

Humanities

Abstract

Pan Yuliang (1895-1977) was a Chinese artist specializing in a Western painting style who spent the majority of her artistic career in Paris. Until recently, Pan was revered not because of her art but because of her sensational life. Recently, however, there has been a blossoming of art historical research on her art, usually with a biographical lens. The majority of Pan’s art is innately tied to her identity as a Chinese woman artist. As Pan had multiple intersecting identities in a tumultuous, dynamic time, and spent time in both China and the West, she had a unique view of the world, and her art often reflected those facets of her identity. Pan’s professional self-portraits and female nudes, in particular, reveal how she explored and shaped her intersecting identities. I argue that Pan referenced and appropriated Western artistic traditions, notably the professional self-portrait and the female nude, in order to explore, curate, and reclaim each facet of her identity.

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