During her brief but prolific career, Liang Baibo mastered a variety of media. Initially, she studied oil painting at the Shanghai Xinhua Art Academy and the West Lake Art Academy in Hangzhou, and was active in the short-lived leftist art society Société de Deux Mondes (Taimeng Huahui 苔蒙畫會). After the group’s disbandment in 1931, she joined the avantgarde Shanghai painting group, the Storm Society (Juelanshe 決瀾社), and participated in at least two of its annual shows: the inaugural exhibition in 1932 and the final exhibition in 1935. As a cartoonist and illustrator, Liang created the popular serial cartoon strip Miss Honeybee (Mifeng xiaojie 蜜蜂小姐), contributed covers to Modern Sketch (Shidai manhua 時代漫畫) and Xiaoshuo 小說 (Short Story) magazines, and produced illustrations for a range of literary publications.

 

With the outbreak of war in 1937, Liang left Shanghai to travel widely with the Cartoonists Association for National Salvation (Manhuajie Jiuwang Xiehui 漫畫界救亡協會), an anti-Japanese propaganda corps led by Ye Qianyu 葉淺予 (1907–1995) that staged poster exhibitions, painted public murals, and published the serials National Salvation Cartoons (Jiuwang manhua 救亡漫畫) and War of Resistance Cartoons (Kangzhan manhua 抗戰漫畫). During these years, Liang was both celebrated in popular pictorials as a member of the heroic cartoonist group and condemned in the scandal rags for her romantic relationship with the married Ye Qianyu. In 1938, Liang left both Ye and the cartoonist association, and returned to her earlier interests in painting and drawing. During the 1940s, she created and published watercolor paintings of her travels in Xinjiang province. Liang relocated to Taiwan with her husband in 1948, where she had a child and suffered a mental breakdown, eventually dying in the late 1960s.

 

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Further Reading:

Ahn, Jaeyeon. “Gendering Cartoons, Representing Woman’s Desire.” Zhongguo xiandai wenxue 中國現代文學 [Modern Chinese Literature and Culture], no. 58 (September 2011): 157–85. 

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Caschera, Martina. “Women in Cartoons: Liang Baibo and the Visual Representations of Women in Modern Sketch.” International Journal of Comic Art 19, no. 2 (Fall/Winter 2017): 224–52. 

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Huang Miaozi 黄苗子. “Fengyu luohua—yi huajia Liang Baibo 风雨落花—忆画家梁白波 [Wind and Rain Scatter Petals: Recalling the Painter Liang Baibo].” In Fengyu luohua 風雨落花. Beijing: Zuojia Chubanshe, 2005. 

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Lent, John A., and Xu Ying. “Chinese Women Cartoonists: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives.” International Journal of Comic Art 5, no. 2 (2003): 351–55.

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Tao Yongbai 陶咏白, and Li Shi 李湜. Shiluo de lishi: Zhongguo nüxing huihua shi 失落的历史: 中国女性绘画 史 [Lost History: The History of Chinese Women’s Painting]. Changsha: Hunan Meishu Chubanshe, 2000. 

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Wangwright, Amanda. The Golden Key: Modern Women Artists and Gender Negotiations in Republican China (1911-1949). Leiden: Brill, 2021.

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Xu Wenhua 徐文华, and Li Chao 李超. “Niu Yue: Zhongjian Liang Baibo de yishu shengming 纽约:重见梁白波的艺 术生命 [New York: An Important Look at the Artistic Life of Liang Baibo].” Xinmin wanbao 新民晚报 [New People’s Evening News], August 29, 2009, sec. B. 

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Zhang Qiongwen 張瓊文. “Minguo nühuajia Liang Baibo huihua zhong de nüxing zhanxian 民國女畫家梁白波 繪畫中的女性展現 [Female Representation in the Paintings of Republican Period Woman Artist Liang Baibo].” Master’s thesis, National Taiwan Normal University, 2016.