Artists › Painters and Calligraphers
Duan Wenjie
Copyist and scholar of the Dunhuang murals who reached Mogao in 1946, copied more than 340 murals in a few years, and in 1984 became the first president of the Dunhuang Academy.
Mural of the event “The Rise of Dunhuang Studies”, which this person took part in.
The National Dunhuang Art Research Institute, founded in 1944, began full-time management of the Mogao Caves and the copying of their murals. In August 1950 it was renamed the Dunhuang Cultural Relics Institute, with Chang Shuhong as director. In March 1961 the State Council published the first batch of national key sites for protection, which included the Mogao Caves (with the West Thousand Buddha Caves) and the Yulin Caves. The emergency consolidation of the Mogao cliff was carried out in three stages and completed by 1966. In August 1984 the institute was enlarged into the Dunhuang Academy, with Duan Wenjie as president and Chang Shuhong as honorary president, and in December 1987 the Mogao Caves were inscribed on the World Heritage List. The caves lie on a cliff on the eastern foot of Mingsha Mountain, on the west bank of the Dachuan River, about 25 kilometres south-east of Dunhuang; they stretch about two kilometres from north to south, facing east towards the Sanwei Mountains.
Duan Wenjie was born in 1917 in Pengxi, Sichuan, to a family from Mianyang. He graduated from the painting department of the National Art School in Chongqing in 1945 and, inspired by Zhang Daqian's exhibition of Dunhuang copies, reached the Mogao caves in 1946 to join the National Dunhuang Art Research Institute. Between 1946 and 1951 he copied more than 340 murals; his best-known work is the restored copy of the Lady of the Military Commissioner Worshipping the Buddha from Cave 130 (1955). He became director of the Dunhuang Cultural Relics Research Institute in 1982 and, in 1984, the first president of the Dunhuang Academy. He edited volumes of Dunhuang mural reproductions and wrote collected essays on the art of the Dunhuang caves. He died in Lanzhou in January 2011.
Life and times
- 1917Born
Republican Era
Modern Era - 1941Guarding Dunhuang
Took partage 24Zhang Daqian went to the Mogao Caves to copy their murals, and Chang Shuhong founded the National Dunhuang Art Research Institute, which cleared the sand, walled the site and surveyed and copied the caves: after centuries of neglect, Mogao began to be protected and studied systematically. - 1950The Rise of Dunhuang Studies
Took partage 33The Dunhuang Art Research Institute became the Dunhuang Cultural Relics Institute in 1950, the Mogao Caves were placed on the national list of key sites in 1961, the institute grew into the Dunhuang Academy in 1984, and the caves were inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1987. - 2011Died
Connections
- Shared events2
