THE OLD MASTER

Chang Dai-chien (1899–1983) occupies a special place in the history of modern Chinese art. Critics, journalists, art historians, curators, and collectors all agree on his importance but have been at something of a loss as to what to make of him. That is at least partly due to the fact that Chang occupied so many roles, each of which contained within itself complexities and contradictions. As a painter, he was both a supreme master of traditional Chinese styles and a modernizing innovator. As a scholar, he was immersed in the old literati culture but also engaged in 20th-century archaeology. As a collector, Chang preserved historic works and made major contributions to their study, but he also used his knowledge and the old materials that he owned to engage in forgery, muddying the historical record and causing trouble for museum curators that persists to this day.

A larger-than-life personality, Chang (whose name is sometimes spelled Zhang Daqian, in the Pinyin system) created a lifestyle for himself that was both luxurious and helpful in promoting his image as a traditional Chinese master of art. He affected a long white beard and preferred Imperial-era Chinese robes to modern Western clothing. Inspired by nature from his earliest youth in Sichuan province, after he went into exile at the Communist Revolution in 1949 he surrounded himself with traditional Chinese-style gardens at his homes in Brazil, California, and Taiwan.