Cui Lei

01 · Lineage & Regional School

He entered the trade in Tianjin in 1989 and moved to Shanghai in the early 1990s, training in the lineage of the Chinese Arts and Crafts Masters Xiao Haichun and Hong Xinhua. Within the regional tradition and school record of Jade Carving in Shanghai: It is distributed mainly in the central urban districts of Shanghai, with workshops concentrated in Huangpu, Jing'an and Xuhui. The Shanghai Jade Carving Factory, the Shanghai Research Institute of Arts and Crafts, and related academies are the principal vehicles for transmitting the technique. Haipai (Shanghai school) jade carving took as its starting point the jade trade that gathered in Shanghai after the port opened; it took shape in the area of the old walled city in the late Qing and early Republic period, and in the mid-20th century was consolidated through enterprises such as the Shanghai Jade Carving Factory, becoming a school standing alongside the northern school, the Yangzhou school and the southern school.

02 · Mastery & Signature Works

Male, Han ethnicity, born in October 1972 in Tianjin. He is a senior arts and crafts master at full professorial level and a Chinese Arts and Crafts Master. His works lay particular stress on structural design, and he excels at figures; he draws boldly on artistic elements such as murals and shadow puppetry, attends closely to line and plane, works with precise technique, and shows distinctive creativity in conveying strength and spatial presence. In 2013 he held a solo exhibition, Dagong Zhanyu (Great Craft, Cutting Jade), at the National Art Museum of China. He funded the production of the instructional video Gongyu Wuqi (Weapons for Working Jade) himself, setting out the sixteen methods of jade working; taking jade carvings as its principal subject, he produced Jiayu (Driving), the first 3D animated film on jade carving, and has made many contributions to the guidance and dissemination of jade culture. In 2004 he established Qingteng Yushe (Green Vine Jade Studio), where he has taken on more than a hundred apprentices. Within the documented technical tradition of Jade Carving in Shanghai: Representative repertoire, works and technical entries recorded for the project include: "Founded in 1843": Founded in 1843, the Shanghai school stands with the northern, Yangzhou and southern schools as one of the four great traditions of Chinese jade carving. "Reading the stone: skin, nature, flaws and form": Work begins with “reading the jade” — judging skin colour, the nature of the material, flaws and overall form — before the design is drawn. "Cutting with the wheel and refining the details": Grinding is the central stage: cleaning the stone, rough drafting, wheel-cutting, blocking out, flattening the base, refining details and finally polishing. "Yuan Yao and the micro-carved Thousand-Armed Guanyin": The national inheritor Yuan Yao blends colour-zone carving, micro-carving and micro-engraving; his 2004 jadeite Thousand-Armed Guanyin entered the Guinness records.

03 · Transmission & Safeguarding Status

National representative bearer of Jade Carving (Shanghai-school Jade Carving), a fifth-batch national intangible cultural heritage project. Works such as Zhizhen Zhizhen (The Truest and Most Precious), Wanshi zhi Gong (Merit of Ten Thousand Generations) and Zongheng Sihai (Across the Four Seas) have won awards at major domestic competitions.

04 · Associated Heritage Item Dossier

05 · Fellow National Bearers Lineage

National representative bearers recorded under the same item code, ordered from the first to the sixth batch. Batch order is not a teacher–student relationship.

06 · Archival Sources & Bibliography

1. Cui Lei · National Representative Bearer Archive