“The Pioneers” exhibition series presented by the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts focuses on artists born between 1931 and 1980 to showcase their individual styles and depict the face of fine arts in post-World War Two Taiwan. The featured artists are grouped into six “classes” according to decade of birth, to be presented in a sequential series of exhibitions. Given the rapid rate of changes over the course of Taiwan’s fine arts development, merely a brief 60-plus years on the axis of history, dividing the period along the lines of a typical “generation” of 30 years would cover too large a swath to appropriately illustrate the artists’ distinctive styles and attributes. With this in mind, the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts places the term “class” that has gained broad currency throughout Taiwanese society in recent years within the concept of “generation,” organizing exhibitions by “classes” ordered by decade to fully reflect the multifarious and rapidly changing face of Taiwanese fine art across the timeline of this period.

Apart from arrangement by “class,” this exhibition series features artists from each generation that embody the character of “pioneers” to illustrate their individuality. These pioneers possess the qualities illustrated in the “Biography of the Assassins” chapter of the Shi Ji (or Book of History), such as defiance, willingness to die for their beliefs, and perseverance that can even drive them to change the course of history. In this sense, this exhibition series endeavors to select artists from each “class” that have made long-term artistic efforts and whose spirits echo those legendary assassins. By examining their unique and innovative artistic expression, individualism, and iconic character this series highlights the distinctiveness of Taiwanese fine arts and offers an alternative interpretation of fine arts development in Taiwan during this period.

“The Pioneers of Taiwanese Artists” exhibition kicks off with the class of artists born between 1931 and 1940 to illustrate this group’s impact on Taiwanese fine arts. This particular class is characterized by the most complicated set of backgrounds among the six classes featured in the series. Roughly divided into two groups, those born in Taiwan and those born in China before World War Two, all of these artists experienced the ravages and tumult of wartime and grew up in post-war Taiwan. However, having experienced different cultural education and socialization during their formative years as youths, they responded to new thinking in art such as the New Art Movement and Modern Painting Movement in different ways, lending diversity to the post-war Taiwanese fine art of the 1950s and 60s. This exhibition features 117 works by 26 artists that embody the “pioneering” spirit, and who are still alive and active today. Demonstrating their diverse and distinctive creative approaches, the exhibition highlights the aesthetic trends that swept this generation and the formative experiences that marked them, to bring out the unique value and significance of their contributions to shaping the development of Taiwanese fine arts.