Wen Qiangang
Mastery, Signature Works & Repertoire
A man of Han ethnicity, he was born in 1941 in Beijing. A national representative bearer of Carved Lacquer Craftsmanship, a first-batch national intangible cultural heritage project, and a master of Chinese arts and crafts. In 1958 he entered the Beijing Arts and Crafts School and, after graduation, was assigned to the Beijing Carved Lacquer Factory. He studied under Zhu Tingren, Sun Caiwen and other senior masters of the older generation of carved lacquer, and became familiar with every stage of carved lacquer production. In 2003, as the number of skilled workers declined year by year and output fell steadily, the factory was restructured and ceased production. Wen Qiangang resolutely led a few former colleagues to set up the carved lacquer studio that still operates today, so that this craft, handed down for more than a thousand years, would not be lost. Wen Qiangang summed up the characteristics of carved lacquer as laborious in work and elaborate in execution; the two most difficult stages are design and planning, and carving. Years of practice have made it possible for Wen Qiangang, no matter how complex the image, to complete each cut in a single stroke without re-cutting.
Honors & Recognition
His award-winning works include Mile (Maitreya), Qiannian Yipin (A Millennium of Supreme Quality), Tianqiuping (Celestial Globe Vase) and Heyuan Guanchao Tu (Watching the Tides at the Garden of Harmony), among others. At present, Wen Qiangang is actively training apprentices of high caliber.
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。