Modern Market Consciousness in Zhang Daqian’s Exhibitions

This article examines Zhang Daqian’s solo exhibition, held at the YMCA on Zhonghua Road in Nanjing from 18 to 22 April 1936, through the combined perspectives of Republican Chinese art history, exhibition studies, and cultural sociology. It investigates how Zhang transformed a traditional Chinese painting exhibition into a market-oriented cultural practice through venue selection, exhibition-oriented art production, elite collecting, newspaper publicity, and exhibition catalog publication. Drawing on exhibition catalogues, newspapers, and archival images, the study reconstructs the exhibition and analyzes its organization, sales, and media coverage. The findings suggest that the exhibition functioned not merely as a display of artworks but as an integrated exhibition–market mechanism combining spatial organization, social networks, value differentiation, and media operation. This mechanism contributed to the construction of artistic reputation, the production of symbolic and market value, and the limited expansion of public accessibility. Beyond enriching existing scholarship on Zhang Daqian, the study provides new evidence for understanding the transformation of Republican Chinese painting exhibitions from literati social gatherings into urban cultural consumption, while demonstrating how exhibitions functioned as institutional platforms for art-market formation with broader implications for arts management, cultural economics, and exhibition studies.