This is the work of Chinese artist, Pan Yuliang (潘玉良, 1895 – 1977). Pan became famous for being the first woman to paint in xiyanghua, (Western style), but her work on nudes was also highly controversial & drew considerable criticism.

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Pan was orphaned at an early age and adopted by her uncle. When Pan was just 14, her uncle sold her to a brothel. In 1913, when she was 18, Pan’s freedom was bought by a wealthy customs official named Pan Zanhua, whom she married & took his first name as her last.

Her husband’s wealth & connections allowed Pan to study art & she soon passed the exams to train at the Shanghai Art School in 1920.

She also studied in Paris at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, and spent a further year in Rome.

In 1929, Pan was invited to be professor of art at the National Central University in Nanjing. But, things were changing rapidly in China.

In 1937, the Second Sino-Japanese War has erupted, bringing with it a rising tide of nationalism and moral reform. Pan’s nude painting, and her past as a sex worker, were heavily criticised by the government.

After one of her painting was vandalised with the words ‘A prostitute’s tribute to her patron’, she left for Paris alone.

Historian Ya-chen Chen noted that china’s emerging feminism had failed women like Pan. She wrote “The female body freed from the brothel became an important signifier in the discourse of emancipation, but the woman herself is dispensable.”

Pan spent the next 40 years in Paris, eking out a living selling her work and teaching at École des Beaux Arts. She won some acclaim and her work was exhibited internationally, but she lived in increasing poverty.

Chairman Mao’s regime was notoriously hostile to artists & intellectuals, so she never returned to China or to her husband. Pan died in 1977 and was buried in the Montparnasse Cemetery of Paris.

In 1985, many of her works were returned to China, and are now held by the National Art Museum of China in Beijing and at the Anhui Provincial Museum in Hefei.

https://frieze.com/article/republican-era-shanghai-postwar-paris-pan-yuliangs-bold-portraits