Display Strategies and Reception of Zhang Daqian’s Works in Europe and North America (1950–1980): A Case Study of the Musée Cernuschi in Paris

Abstract

This research centers on Zhang Daqian’s landmark solo exhibition held at Paris’s Musée Cernuschi in 1956. It tracks how Chinese ink-wash paintings were displayed and received across European and American art circles between the 1950s and 1980s, against the backdrop of Western modernist artistic movements. Multiple types of primary materials support this analysis, covering museum archives, mainstream media reviews, auction transaction records and peer-reviewed art criticism. The paper sorts out how Zhang adopted targeted cross-cultural curatorial tactics to build his unique international artistic identity, as well as viable developmental paths for non-Western art within the post-war global art system. Evidence from the case study proves that Zhang successfully established himself as a core representative of Eastern artistic traditions. His mature splashed-color painting method carries forward the material craft of Song-dynasty blue-green landscapes, while echoing the spontaneous creative logic favored by Western Abstract Expressionist creators. This fusion granted traditional ink-wash art an unprecedented visual language. Beyond its archival value, this work expands people’s understanding of classical Chinese painting and offers solid references for analyzing similar cross-cultural artistic communication phenomena.