Pan Yuliang / 潘玉良

My Family

1932

A family image makes private modern life publicly visible

Pan Yuliang's My Family, an oil painting of a domestic family group — Image reference: Pan Yuliang research chronology, Li Ching Cultural and Educational Foundation. Educational presentation.

Enter the artwork study

Object in the Pan Yuliang study

Date: 1932
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: Dimensions not stated in the chronology
Collection / record: Documented in the Pan Yuliang research chronology
Catalogue / accession: 1932 exhibition record

01 / Why this work matters

A family image makes private modern life publicly visible

My Family entered a 1932 exhibition in Shanghai during Pan's most active period as a teacher. Rather than treating domestic life as a lesser subject, she gives the family group the compositional seriousness of a public painting. Bodies, furniture, clothing, and inward attention organize a modern interior.

The title is also a statement of belonging. Pan's household did not fit a simple respectable ideal, and her biography was repeatedly used to police her public standing. Painting family allowed her to represent attachment on her own terms rather than through gossip or institutional record.

02 / Formal analysis

Five ways to read the visible evidence.

Move from color and composition toward the material surface and the space the work asks you to inhabit.

Color and light

Figures connected through pose rather than theatrical gesture

Composition and rhythm

Furniture anchoring bodies within a lived interior

Line and gesture

A restrained palette holding several kinds of intimacy

Surface and material

Space and scale

03 / History and object record

Place the image inside a life, a period, and a documented record.

Historical interpretation

Pan Yuliang, 1932

The painter and sculptor who claimed the modern body, the self-portrait, and Chinese line as sites of authorship across Shanghai, Rome, and Paris.

Exhibition and record history

What the cited record establishes

Recorded collection: Documented in the Pan Yuliang research chronology
Catalogue reference: 1932 exhibition record
Exhibition chronology: The cited public record does not provide a complete exhibition chronology. Follow the primary record for provenance, display history, and future updates.

04 / Connections