The First Muban Educational Trust Woodblock Printmaking Awards

In late February 2015, the Muban Educational Trust announced the two winners of the First Muban Educational Trust’s Woodblock Printmaking Awards as Guo Shuang, a student at the Si Chuan Academy of Fine Arts in Chongqing and Wu Jiantang studying at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing. Each artist received £2000.

Seventy eight final year undergraduate and post-graduate students representative of academies of art in many parts of China responded to the initial notification of the Award with a selection of their current work as digital images. Working from these images a short list of twenty applicants was agreed. Each of the short listed students were then asked to send three original prints that they considered best represented their use of the medium of the woodblock print.

The two winners were selected from the short list by Clarissa von Spee of the British Museum. In spite of the predominance of works in black and white, the two winners demonstrated very different approaches to the woodcut print.

A small, exquisitely cut print by Guo Shuang, proved to be a cartoon for the two larger works, a more boldly cut single image and much larger horizontal triptych, a panorama of a crowded urban Chinese street scene with its pushing, jostling crowds moving, playing, observing each other and doing business; the panorama, printed from hardwood blocks with oil-bound ink onto a single sheet of paper, is 80 x 334 cm in size.

By contrast, Wu Jiantang’s three prints are from plywood blocks, finely cut in a ragged, splintery manner, they of fantasies, dream like images of people acting out in landscapes that play with perspectival conventions.

Wu Jiantang – Award winner

吴建棠 《乌托邦 － 冷漠》

80 x 60 cm

The Trust has purchased some of the short listed prints to add into MET’s permanent collection.  Other prints are available for purchase by other institutions and collectors.  Please see “prints fro sale” section of our website.

Below are some examples of the prints purchased by the MET.

英国木版教育信托 (The Muban Educational Trust) 2014首届木版奖于2015年2月23日于伦敦揭晓。共有20位获提名资格的中国各美术院校应届毕业生和在读硕士生提交了木刻版画作品。青年版画家吴建棠(中央美术学院，指导教师：康剑飞)，郭双 (四川美术学院，指导教师：付继红)的版画作品荣获英国木版教育信托首届木版奖，每位获奖者将会获得两千英镑奖金。首届木版奖评委组成员：英国木版教育信托秘书长巴大玮教授 (Prof. David Barker)、苏富比艺术学院研究生部主任龙安妮博士(Dr.Anne Farrer)、大英博物馆中国部史明理博士 (Dr. Clarissa von Spee )和牛津大学拉什金美术学院何为民博士。获提名的部分作品将由英国木版教育信托收藏。大英博物馆也将收藏部分获提名作品。《中国版画》杂志与英国《今日版画》杂志都将对该奖项予以专题报道。除了上面的两幅得奖作品外，以下为一些由木版教育信托收藏的作品。