The ‘Occupied Lens’ in Wartime China: Portrait Photography in the Service of Chinese ‘Collaboration’, 1939–1945

Taylor, Jeremy E.

Abstract

This paper explores the importance of portrait photography to the wartime collaborationist regime of Wang Jingwei, which governed parts of Japanese-occupied China from 1940 to 1945. It demonstrates how, for a combination of practical, political and cultural reasons, studio portraiture was chosen as one of the primary forms of media for the propagation of iconography by this administration. Studio portraiture was also, however, a realm in which this Chinese regime sought to stamp its own mark on visual culture, separate from the iconography of the occupying Japanese. This paper demonstrates this by tracing the origins and fate of a number of widely-circulated studio portraits of Wang taken in 1939, 1940, and 1941. This paper also speculates about the possibility of identifying and defining an 'occupied lens' during the war, 1 one which was clearly derivative of prewar forms, yet evolved in ways which set it apart both from Japanese propaganda, and from the visual culture of resistance.

Citation

Taylor, J. E. (2019). The ‘Occupied Lens’ in Wartime China: Portrait Photography in the Service of Chinese ‘Collaboration’, 1939–1945. History of Photography, 43(3), 284-307. https://doi.org/10.1080/03087298.2019.1662604

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Aug 8, 2019
• Online Publication Date: Oct 17, 2019
• Publication Date: Oct 17, 2019
• Deposit Date: Aug 23, 2019
• Publicly Available Date: Apr 18, 2021
• Journal: History of Photography
• Print ISSN: 0308-7298
• Electronic ISSN: 2150-7295
• Publisher: Routledge
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 43
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 284-307
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/03087298.2019.1662604
• Keywords: China; Japan; foreign occupation; war; studio photography; portraits; leaders; Wang Jingwei (1883-1944); Bann's Studio [Guangyi zhaoxiangguan]; Liang Boping
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/2483881
• Publisher URL: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03087298.2019.1662604
• Additional Information: Peer Review Statement: The publishing and review policy for this title is described in its Aims & Scope.; Aim & Scope: http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?show=aimsScope&journalCode=thph20; Published: 2019-10-17