Fine Art Translations Series

The Fine Art Translations Series was a bimonthly journal on foreign art theories. The articles were selected from the submissions made from artists throughout China. Proofreading was really annoying, especially when there were not enough articles submitted and some were still in their original languages. In that case I would have to translate from the foreign journals myself. It was such a torturous job. But it was also joyful to see every issue get published on time. In winter, my niece sent me a catalogue of Pablo Picasso’s paintings. Coincidentally, the next year on the 25th of October, it was the 100 anniversary of Pablo Picasso’s birthday. So, I hoped to have the catalogue translated into Chinese and published before his anniversary, and in that case it would be a very important piece of translation work. But I was too busy to get an early start on it. What to do? I thought of Min Xiwen. He might be willing to help me out. So, I asked him and he was willing to offer me assistance. So began this huge project. He sent me the first draft one page after the other while I proofread and made the necessary changes. Eventually, every word seemed to be perfect. At that time one of my students, Ye Wenxi, happened to be working for a publisher in Shanghai. So, we immediately decided to collaborate on this project. In September, 1981, a rough draft of this more than 10,000 word work was finalized and sent to the publisher. After an initial round of reading and consideration, the publisher felt this would be a perfect topic and the language was also so beautiful that they wanted to publish at once. Meanwhile, Jiang Feng, a senior member representing the art circle of China, visited Zhejiang Academy of Art and saw us preparing the feature edition on Pablo Picasso. Jiang was angry, and said: “Pablo Picasso, Henry Matisse…How dare you people teach about all these foreign artists?” Under such pressure, my effort for this feature edition on Picasso became a futile enterprise, and we were forced by the senior administrators to change topics. Then, Jiang Feng went to Sichuan, and at Sichuang Academy of Art in Chengdu he criticized the Zhejiang Academy of Art for allowing our teaching about such artist. His criticism was also picked up by the newspapers. Subsequently, the Shanghai People’s Publishing House could no longer contemplate publishing my book on Pablo Picasso. However, people in the publishing house still liked this topic very much, so they kept my draft and wanted to publish it when the time was right. I was surprised that even having a book published also required a little bit luck within such a political atmosphere. In 1985 when I was about to leave for France, the publisher brought up this publishing possibility with me again but then the Anti-capitalism Movement occurred and once again making it impossible (Figs. 42.1 and 42.2).