Jiawei Shen Self-portrait with GE (Chinese) Morrison

Born in China in 1940, Jiawei Shen was largely self-taught as an artist due to the closure of art schools during the so-called Cultural Revolution. He was set designer for the Chinese Army’s opera troupe and was also active as an artist, specialising in historical subjects. In 1981 he obtained membership of the Chinese Artists’ Association and in 1982 his work was selected for exhibition at the Salon du Printemps, Paris, the year he began a two-year course of advanced study at the Central Academy of Fine Arts. Shen migrated to Australia in 1989 and his work has appeared in the Archibald Prize in 1993, 1994 and 1995.

‘Chinese’ Morrison was born 1862 in the Victorian town of Geelong where about 20 per cent of the population was Chinese as a result of the goldrush. A famous newspaper correspondent, he settled in Peking (now Beijing) and in 1895 published a book titled An Australian in China, an account of his remarkable journey through pre-revolutionary China. Morrison died in 1920.

A photograph from the Mitchell Library collection at the State Library of NSW was Shen’s reference for his depiction of Morrison in this portrait. Shen plans to use the ‘great many photographs and a great deal of information’ that Morrison left behind as the basis for what he calls ‘an on-going dialogue (with Morrison) in paint’.