This is China's earliest nude photo

By James Griffiths, December 3, 2013

The above photo, 'Meditation', was taken by Lang Jingshan in 1928, it is believed to be the earliest surviving nude photograph taken in China.

The photo, donated by Lang's daughter to the National Art Museum of China, was taken in 1928 of a girl surnamed Zhang, whose father reportedly beat her viciously after he heard she'd posed nude.

In 1930, Lang published his 'Album of Nude Photographs', the first of its kind in China. In 1980, he was deemed one of the world's top ten "master photographers" by the Photographic Society of America. Lang, whose father was a Qing military attache, fled the mainland for Taiwan in 1949, shortly after the founding of the People's Republic of China. He died in Taipei in 1995.

More images from 'Album of Nude Photographs':

[Via: Beijing Cream, Shanghaiist]

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