She was one of the first women to graduate from the Shanghai Art Academy, and one of the first to paint in the Western style. Her unshakeable commitment enabled her to overcome the many obstacles facing modern women in the early 20th century.
Pan Yulin, born in 1895 in Jiangsu, China, was to have a considerable influence on modern 20th-century Chinese art. The Shanghai school, where she studied, was well-known for its avant-gardism and taught Western techniques, particularly life drawing.
In 1921 she went to France, studying at the Ecoles des Beaux-Arts of both Lyon and Paris.
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Pan Yulin’s modernist works aroused lively controversy and severe criticism in 1930s China, because she focused particularly on the nude: a subject still very much taboo there. As a result, she returned to Paris, and went on numerous travels.Her works were exhibited all over the world, and she continued to merge styles in her work, becoming a fully rounded artist and a legend in her time. Her approach developed during a period of continuous transformation, where oppositions between not only tradition and modernism but also East and West existed side by side.
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