Lai Afong
Lai Afong (Chinese: 赖阿芳 aka. Lai Ah Fong, Huafang, Fang Lai, Lihua Fang, Li Fang, A'Fong Lai, 赖華芳, 黎華芳, 芳華) (c.1839 - 1890) was a Chinese photographer who established Afong Studio, one of the early photographic studios in Hong Kong. He is considered to be the most significant Chinese photographer of the nineteenth century.[1]
Work
His studio was active from 1859 to around the 1940s. The business was probably taken over by his son in the 1890s.[2] Subject matters ranged from portraits and social life pictures to cityscapes and landscapes. Lai's work and person were praised by John Thomson, a Scottish photographer working in China at the time, in Thomson's book The Straits of Malacca, Indo-China, and China.[3] Lai's experience totally originated into the Western community, but it still reveals the same sensibility of the literati painting which embodied both learned references to the styles of ancient masters and the inner spirit of the artist.[4]
Gallery
| Selected photographs by Lai Afong | ||||||||||||||
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See also
References
- ↑ Hannavy, John (2013). Encyclopedia of Nineteenth-Century Photography. Routledge. p. 815. ISBN 9781135873264. Retrieved 10 September 2015.
- ↑ "Afong" on Wattis Fine Art website
- ↑ Thompson, John (1875). The Straits of Malacca, Indo-China, and China. Harper & brothers. pp. 188–189. Retrieved 11 November 2015.
- ↑ Meccarelli M. "New Perspectives about the Origins of Chinese Photography and Western Research in China" in ARTE DAL MEDITERRANEO AL MAR DELLA CINA Genesi ed incontri di scuole e stili. Scritti in onore di Paola Mortari Vergara Caffarelli eds. P. Fedi-M. Paolillo, Officina di Studi Medievali , Palermo, 2015, pp. 587-598
Further reading
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to Lai Afong. |
- Bennett, Terry (2009). History of Photography in China 1842-1860. Bernard Quaritch. ISBN 978-0-9563012-0-8.
- Bennett, Terry (2013). History of photography in China : Chinese photographers, 1844-1879. London: Quaritch. ISBN 9780956301246.
- Chen, Shi (2009). Early Chinese Photographers from 1840 to 1870: Innovation and Adaptation in the Development of Chinese Photography (PDF) (Master of Arts thesis). University of Florida. Retrieved 26 February 2015.
- Cody, Jeffery W.; Terpak, Frances, eds. (2011). Brush & Shutter : early photography in China. Los Angeles, California: Getty Research Institute. ISBN 978-1-60606-054-4.