Returned to lender The Met accepts temporary loans of art both for short-term exhibitions and for long-term display in its galleries.
The Quarrymen (Hewing Rocks)
Wang Qi Chinese
Not on view
In the early 1940s, Wang Qi created a series of prints depicting people and customs in Sichuan. This one presents an overview of a quarry at high noon from the perspective of two workers taking a break in the shade. The stark contrast of black and white brings out the intensity of scorching sunlight and the brutality of the harsh working conditions.
A student of Western painting at the Shanghai Fine Arts College, Wang Qi left east China at the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War in 1937 and later attended the Lu Xun Institute of Literature and Art in Yan’an. He returned to his hometown, Chongqing, in late 1938 and pursued woodcuts as a more expedient wartime art form. This work is exemplary of his style during that period.
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