Founded in 1957, Zhenjiang Calligraphy and Painting Academy is one of the earliest municipal-level painting academies in Jiangsu Province. Originally known as Zhenjiang Traditional Chinese Painting Studio which was founded in 1957, it was renamed Zhenjiang Traditional Chinese Painting Gallery in 1978. The name was changed again to Zhenjiang Chinese Painting Academy and Zhenjiang Painting Academy in 1989 and 2007 respectively. In 2020, It was officially renamed Zhenjiang Calligraphy and Painting Academy with the approval of the Office of the Municipal Government Establishment Committee and the Municipal Bureau of Culture, Radio, TV, and Tourism.
It is a two-story building on the new site with a floor area of 1,000 square meters. On the first floor, it is the exhibition hall of Zhenjiang Art Museum (Painting Academy) with a gallery of 130 meters that is equipped with modern lighting and monitoring devices. The second floor has a studio, a seminar hall, a conference room, an office, etc., which are ideal for a wide variety of calligraphy and painting exhibitions and seminars.
The Academy has unceasingly held nearly one hundred professional calligraphy and painting exhibitions of various types throughout the year (including holidays and festivals) since its founding to meet the needs of people at different appreciation levels of art and culture. A number of lectures on art popularization have been held as well. The exhibitions are all free to the public, like classes for promoting public aesthetic education.
More information: Jingjiang Painting School
The Jingjiang Painting School was particularly active between the second half of the 18th century and the first half of the 19th century, which was also an unprecedented period of prosperity for the art of painting in Zhenjiang. The celebrated artists of this period included Zhang Yin, Gu Heqing, Pan Simu, Wang Yuyan, Zhou Hao, Ming Jian, Sheng Changhan, and Huang Zhaoxi, etc. According to the historical documents, the emergence of Zhang Yin and others is generally regarded as the beginning of the Jingjiang Painting School. The most representative artists of the Jingjiang Painting School such as Zhang Yin, Pan Simu, Gu Heqing and Zhou Hao, brought Zhenjiang to a thriving period for art.
Picture of Zhang Yin
