Shain Library, Charles Chu Room

The Chu-Griffis Asian Art Collection at Connecticut College presentsOF COLOR AND INK: The Chang Dai-chien Story Documentary Film Screening & Director Talk with Director Weimin Zhang Award-winning Filmmaker and Professor of Film Studies, San Francisco State University Chang Dai-chien (Zhang Daqian 张大千1899–1983) has long been hailed as one of China's foremost 20th-century painters. Sometimes referred to as "Picasso of the East," Chang's paintings have outsold Van Gogh (CNN (mailto:https://www.cnn.com/style/article/zhang-daqian-picasso-of-east/index.html)) and have broken records at auction (New York Times (mailto:https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/02/arts/china-art-auction-zhang-daqian.html)). Yet his thirty-year global journey after leaving mainland China in 1949 remains widely misunderstood and shrouded in mystery.Of Color and Ink is the first film (2023, run time: 101 minutes) to document the 30-year exile of Chang Dai-chien through South America, Europe, and the United States. Directed by award-winning filmmaker Weimin Zhang, it is also the culmination of Zhang's own 12-year journey to unravel the mysteries and controversies surrounding Chang Dai-chien's political, artistic, and spiritual quests. The film delves into Chang's extraordinary life in exile, highlighting the global context of his art and its broad impact as it crossed cultural and political boundaries between East and West.Of Color and Ink has received wide critical acclaim for its cinematic achievement and scholarly contribution and has so far won Best Feature Documentary Film Awards at film festivals in Brazil, China, and the United States. Weimin Zhang is an award-winning filmmaker, cinematographer, and professor of film studies at San Francisco State University's School of Cinema. As one of China's Sixth Generation filmmakers, she graduated from Beijing Film Academy and then received her MFA at Ohio University. She has worked on numerous award-winning films, documentaries, and TV drama series in both China and the U.S. as a director, cinematographer, and editor. A Q&A with Weimin Zhang will follow the screening, moderated by Yibing Huang, Curator of the Chu-Griffis Asian Art Collection and Professor of Chinese. This event is free and open to the public. Cosponsors: Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, Department of Art History and Architectural Studies, Asian Students In Action (ASIA), and the Faculty-Student Engagement Fund at Connecticut College

Arts & Culture, Lectures & Symposia