Huang Shenghui

01 · Lineage & Regional School

In 1956 she was recruited as a technical specialist by the Wuhan Second Light Industry Bureau and studied under the well-known artists Dai Meixuan, Hu Rongting and He Xiuying. Within the regional tradition and school record of Hanxiu in Wuhanshijianghan, Hubei: Han embroidery is popular in the Jingsha, Wuhan, and Honghu areas of Hubei Province. Where the embroidery industry was concentrated, many streets and towns took their names from embroidery, such as Xiuhuadi around Xiulin Town in Shishou City and Fengkou Town in Honghu City, and Xiuhua Street in Hankou; Xiulin in Shishou is itself named after embroidery. Han embroidery takes pu (spreading), ya (pressing), zhi (weaving), suo (locking), kou (fastening), pan (coiling), and tao (casing) as its principal stitch techniques, with pingjin jiaxiu as its principal mode of expression, and emphasizes that “a flower has no fixed form; liveliness comes first,” generally beginning from the outer edges and working inward layer by layer until the whole embroidered surface is filled. Han embroidery began in the Han dynasty, flourished in the Tang dynasty, and reached its height in the Qing dynasty, and in transmission it descends directly from Chu embroidery. As the land of ancient Chu, the Wuhan region’s particular geographic environment provided cultural soil for the development of Han embroidery: the Jianghan Plain is crisscrossed by waterways and plied by boats, and women often embroidered at the bows of boats or beside their looms. Since the Tang and Song dynasties, the brocades woven in the silk-producing Jingxiang region and used in court embroidery work were shipped in large quantities through Hankou, and embroiderers and embroidery patterns likewise gathered and were distributed there, so that the town acquired a structure in which the embroidery industry was concentrated.

02 · Mastery & Signature Works

Female, Han ethnicity, born in October 1936 in Changsha county, Hunan Province. Born into a family of embroiderers, she learned embroidery from her mother from early childhood. After graduating from middle school she joined the Hunan Xiang Embroidery Factory. She integrated the blending stitch she had mastered into Han embroidery and in the early 1970s created a new stitch capable of rendering relief texture, the beng zhen or bounding stitch, which gives her embroidered dragons and fish a shimmering, lifelike visual effect. She has long been devoted to the revival and development of Han embroidery, training more than three hundred workers at the Wuhan Folk Art Theatrical Embroidery Factory and its affiliated embroidery stations, taking an active part in the various Han embroidery courses held by universities, associations and communities, and actively exploring models of transmission that pair folk art with higher education. Within the documented technical tradition of Hanxiu in Wuhanshijianghan, Hubei: Han embroidery is a traditional embroidery art popular in the Jingsha, Wuhan, and Honghu areas of Hubei Province. According to historical records, it began in the Han dynasty, flourished in the Tang dynasty, and reached its height in the Qing dynasty. As the land of ancient Chu, the Wuhan region’s particular geographic environment provided cultural soil for the development of Han embroidery. Xiuhuadi (Embroidered Flower Embankment) around Xiulin Town in Shishou City and Fengkou Town in Honghu City, and Xiuhua Street (Embroidered Flower Street) in Hankou all took their names from the concentration of embroidery there. Building on Chu embroidery and drawing together the strengths of northern and southern stitching methods, Han embroidery gradually formed an embroidery art system whose principal stitch techniques are pu (spreading), ya (pressing), zhi (weaving), suo (locking), kou (fastening), pan (coiling), and tao (casing), and whose principal mode of expression is pingjin jiaxiu, flat gold embroidery interwoven with other stitches. Han embroidery emphasizes that “a flower has no fixed form; liveliness comes first.” It generally begins stitching from the outer edges and works inward layer by layer until the entire embroidered surface is filled. According to the different textures and patterns of the embroidered piece, the stitcher must flexibly apply various stitch techniques, needle with decisiveness, pay attention to the neatness of pattern edges — the so-called “even stitch” — and attend to the layering and three-dimensionality produced by color-graded shading. Han embroidery is bold in conception, rich and intense in color, full in composition, and strongly decorative; everywhere it reveals lingering traces of Chu style, occupying a place of its own in China’s embroidery garden and shining brilliantly. Representative repertoire, works and technical entries recorded for the project include: "The seven principal stitches": Laying, pressing, weaving, locking, clasp, coiling and looping, with flat-gold appliqué, laid decisively and edged cleanly to build relief. "The leaping stitch": Huang Shenghui folded the Hunan blending stitch into Han embroidery and invented the leaping stitch, giving dragons and fish a shimmering relief. "No single fruit, merriment first": Bold in design and rich in colour, its principle is merriment before botanical accuracy, worked from the edge inward until the ground is covered.

03 · Transmission & Safeguarding Status

National representative bearer of Hanxiu, a fifth-batch national intangible cultural heritage project.

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. Huang Shenghui · National Representative Bearer Archive