Zhang Kekang
Lineage & School of Heritage
He was born into a family long engaged in bantong making and, in his twenties, learned the craft from his father, Zhang Xingyuan.
Mastery, Signature Works & Repertoire
A national representative bearer of Bantong Making Craftsmanship, a third-batch national intangible cultural heritage project. He is the twelfth-generation transmitter of bantong making. Over more than thirty years in the craft he has mastered bantong making; building on tradition, he has continually improved and innovated, selecting materials strictly, using native copper from within the Huize and Dongchuan areas and melting it over pear-wood charcoal, hammering out slag and other impurities as he works, and exercising precise control over such key stages as firing the mottling, boiling it and bringing the pattern out. His raw bantong pieces are superbly executed, with handles, neck, body and three feet in harmonious proportion and an even thickness throughout. The color of the crystalline mottling ranges from deep blue and purple-gold to crimson. The pieces are vigorous and archaic, elegant and sumptuous, of very high value for appreciation and for collection, and they enjoy the reputation of being 'a unique art of China'. He actively takes on apprentices; because the bantong technique was traditionally kept secret and not transmitted outside the family, he has now trained his two sons as transmitters of the craft.
Honors & Recognition
Male, Han ethnic group, born in April 1955, died in February 2013, a native of Huize County, Yunnan Province.
References & Archival Sources
Representative Items of This Bearer
Profile
This static English edition is rendered at the edge for search engines, AI crawlers and readers without JavaScript. Compiled from official national representative bearer archival records, organized by topic and translated into English. 阅读中文版。