Li Xiu - born 1943

Li Xiu is outstanding among China's leading artists in more than one way. First of all she is an excellent printmaker, secondly she is a woman artist and thirdly she belongs to the Yi ethnic minority in Yunnan.
Back Home after Graduation

The artistic breakthrough came for Li Xiu with a print titled Back Home after Graduation. It shows a girl from the ethnic Yi minority at her arrival by train back home. The print was done in 1977 and is kept in the style of the period - the style well-known from the Chinese propaganda posters. The image is beautiful and the art work made Li Xiu famous. The print was first shown at a national Chinese exhibition celebrating the "50th anniversary of China Prints". Later the art work went on a tour to France where it was shown to the French people.

After "Back Home after Graduation", Li Xiu began to work on several new series that turned out to be quite spectacular. They were titled "Ah, what a Horse Caravan" (1982), "The Quiet Lugu Lake" (1982). "The Years Dragging Long" (1984), "The Hengduan Mountains" (1988) or "Limpid Water" (1991).

Since "Back Home after Graduation" Li Xiu has experienced a great career as an artist and as an outstanding woman coming from an ethnic minority. Since then she has engaged herself not only in arts, but also in social and political issues promoting and supporting the role of women and ethnic minorities in China.
Editions, Technique and Style

Li Xiu's art style is not uninfluenced from what is today called the Yunnan Art School in modern printmaking. This term describes a certain direction in printmaking that has been born in Yunnan province and has over the last years become famous outside China as well. The common bonds are the use of strong and vibrant colors and the focus on depicting the exotic landscapes and the life and customs of a great variety of ethnic minority groups in this South-West province of China.

Li Xiu prints with rather thick oil-based inks comparable to the way how Hao Ping works - another artist from Yunnan. The edition size is small as usual for Chinese artists - at least for the 1980s and 1990s and the beginning of the new millennium. And as usual for Chinese artists, the prints are titled, dated, numbered and signed.