Qian Xiaoping
Mastery, Signature Works & Repertoire
Qian Xiaoping, a female of Han ethnicity, was born in 1939 in Suzhou, Jiangsu. She is a national representative bearer of Songjin Weaving Craftsmanship, a first-batch national intangible cultural heritage project. In 1954 Qian Xiaoping entered the Jiangsu Silk Industrial School to major in silk weaving; in 1957 she joined the Suzhou Silk Research Institute, where she engaged in the design of silk fabrics and research on silk techniques; from 1966 onward she began excavating and researching Songjin. Over fifty years of artistic practice, she focused in her early years on the design and research of new silk products, and in her later years on the replication of and research on ancient silks, especially ancient brocades. She successfully developed a number of new silk products, such as Huarong Chou (flower-velvet silk), Fengyu Xiao (phoenix-feather gauze) and Langhua Zhou (wave crepe); in cooperation with the National Museum of China and other institutions, she also successfully replicated more than twenty precious silk relics of the pre-Qin period, the Western and Eastern Han dynasties, the Sui and Tang dynasties, and the Ming and Qing dynasties, such as the Shang-dynasty Thunder-Pattern Flowered Qi, the Warring States Dancing Figures and Animal-Pattern Brocade and the Western Han Red-Ground Floral and Deer-Pattern Brocade, together with a group of Songjin works that were on the verge of being lost. She has persisted in taking on apprentices and passing on her art, and serves as an adjunct professor at Soochow University; she has traveled abroad on many occasions to disseminate Chinese silk culture and techniques, and has edited and compiled several treatises on silk craftsmanship.
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