Sha Fei (; May 5, 1912 – March 4, 1950) was a Chinese
photojournalist
Photojournalism is journalism that uses images to tell a news story. It usually only refers to still images, but can also refer to video used in broadcast journalism. Photojournalism is distinguished from other close branches of photography (such ...
and
war photographer
''War Photographer'' is a documentary by Christian Frei about the photographer James Nachtwey. As well as telling the story of an iconic man in the field of war photography, the film addresses the broader scope of ideas common to all those in ...
best known for his work with the
Chinese Communist Party
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), officially the Communist Party of China (CPC), is the founding and One-party state, sole ruling party of the China, People's Republic of China (PRC). Under the leadership of Mao Zedong, the CCP emerged victoriou ...
during the
Second Sino-Japanese War
The Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) or War of Resistance (Chinese term) was a military conflict that was primarily waged between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan. The war made up the Chinese theater of the wider Pacific Th ...
(1937–45). Born Situ Chuan (司徒传), he took the pseudonym Sha Fei (flying sand), that is, a grain of sand in the sky of his country. He has been called "one of the most admired Leftist photographers in China during the wartime years of 1937–1949", and "one of the most influential photographers of his generation". His "warm, dramatic, and ideologically-charged photographic presentations were emulated for decades thereafter".
Early years
![Lu Xun 1936](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/53/Lu_Xun_1936.jpg)
Situ Chuan (Sha Fei) was born in 1912 in
Guangzhou
Guangzhou (, ; ; or ; ), also known as Canton () and alternatively romanized as Kwongchow or Kwangchow, is the capital and largest city of Guangdong province in southern China. Located on the Pearl River about north-northwest of Hong Kon ...
(Canton),
Guangdong
Guangdong (, ), alternatively romanized as Canton or Kwangtung, is a coastal province in South China on the north shore of the South China Sea. The capital of the province is Guangzhou. With a population of 126.01 million (as of 2020) ...
Province. His father, Situ Junxun (司徒俊勋), was a small business owner. Sha Fei felt he needed to learn a trade to support his family when his father's business went under in 1926, and studied at a radio school. In July 1926 he enlisted in the
National Revolutionary Army
The National Revolutionary Army (NRA; ), sometimes shortened to Revolutionary Army () before 1928, and as National Army () after 1928, was the military arm of the Kuomintang (KMT, or the Chinese Nationalist Party) from 1925 until 1947 in China ...
and joined the
Northern Expedition
The Northern Expedition was a military campaign launched by the National Revolutionary Army (NRA) of the Kuomintang (KMT), also known as the "Chinese Nationalist Party", against the Beiyang government and other regional warlords in 1926. The ...
as a telegraph operator. He worked at a radio station in
Shantou from 1932 to 1936, and became interested in photography, preferring a style more realistic than the international style he saw in magazines. In June 1935, he joined the
Shanghai
Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flow ...
-based Black and White Photographic Society ().
In 1936, he decided to become a professional photographer and quit his job in Shantou. He went to Shanghai, and in the fall entered the Department of Western Painting of the
Shanghai Fine Arts Academy. He became well known for his photographs of blind beggars, poverty stricken children, and emaciated peasants. Shanghai was the base of most modern Chinese artists at the time, and he had the opportunities to meet famous people in the cultural circles such as
Lu Xun
Zhou Shuren (25 September 1881 – 19 October 1936), better known by his pen name Lu Xun (or Lu Sun; ; Wade–Giles: Lu Hsün), was a Chinese writer, essayist, poet, and literary critic. He was a leading figure of modern Chinese literature. W ...
. On 8 October 1936, he took the most famous photograph of Lu Xun's late life at the Second National Woodcut Exhibition. When Lu died 11 days later, he took some of Lu's last photos. These photos, as well as ones taken during Lu's funeral, were widely published in many magazines, including ''Liangyou'' (''The Young Companion'') and ''Shidai'', establishing his reputation as a photojournalist. Sha Fei's photo was later the template for the cover art on Lu Xun's collected works.
Wartime activities
![Eighth Route Army fighting on Futuyu Great Wall, 1938](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ae/Eighth_Route_Army_fighting_on_Futuyu_Great_Wall%2C_1938.jpg)
Soon after his Lu Xun images earned him national fame, the
Second Sino-Japanese War
The Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) or War of Resistance (Chinese term) was a military conflict that was primarily waged between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan. The war made up the Chinese theater of the wider Pacific Th ...
broke out in 1937 and Sha Fei joined the Communist resistance in northern China. He went to the battlefront and photographed the
Battle of Pingxingguan
The Battle of Pingxingguan (), commonly called the Great Victory of Pingxingguan in Mainland China, was an engagement fought on 25 September 1937, at the beginning of the Second Sino-Japanese War, between the Eighth Route Army of the Chinese Co ...
in September. The following month he formally enlisted in the
Eighth Route Army, which established a resistance base in the Jin-Cha-Ji (
Shanxi
Shanxi (; ; formerly romanised as Shansi) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China and is part of the North China region. The capital and largest city of the province is Taiyuan, while its next most populated prefecture-lev ...
-
Chahar-
Hebei
Hebei or , (; alternately Hopeh) is a northern province of China. Hebei is China's sixth most populous province, with over 75 million people. Shijiazhuang is the capital city. The province is 96% Han Chinese, 3% Manchu, 0.8% Hui, an ...
) border region. In November, he was made head of the editorial department of the base's propaganda bureau. He was also appointed head of the ''Resistance Daily Press'' (), the predecessor of the ''
People's Daily
The ''People's Daily'' () is the official newspaper of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The newspaper provides direct information on the policies and viewpoints of the CCP. In addition to its main Chinese-language ...
'', and covered the battles of the Eighth Route Army. He founded the ''Jin-Cha-Ji Pictorial'' (), which first appeared on July 7, 1942.
![Norman Bethune China 1938](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/18/Norman_Bethune_China_1938.jpg)
He took thousands of photographs of battle scenes, Japanese brutality, common people caught in hard circumstances, high communist leaders, and foreign visitors. More than 200 were published. He also ran classes to train a cohort of photojournalists. In 1938, Canadian doctor
Norman Bethune
Henry Norman Bethune (; March 4, 1890 – November 12, 1939; zh, t=亨利·諾爾曼·白求恩, p=Hēnglì Nuò'ěrmàn Báiqiú'ēn) was a Canadian thoracic surgeon, early advocate of socialized medicine, and member of the Communist Party ...
went to
Yan'an
Yan'an (; ), alternatively spelled as Yenan is a prefecture-level city in the Shaanbei region of Shaanxi province, China, bordering Shanxi to the east and Gansu to the west. It administers several counties, including Zhidan (formerly Bao'an ...
, the communist headquarters. Sha Fei befriended Bethune and took many photos of him. Bethune bequeathed his camera to Sha Fei when he died in 1939.
After contracting
tuberculosis
Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease usually caused by '' Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can also affect other parts of the body. Most infections show no symptoms, in ...
, Sha Fei was sent to
Shijiazhuang in May 1948 to be treated at the Norman Bethune Hospital. He was also suffering from mental illness after years of highly stressful work in the war zone. On December 15, 1949, he shot to death a Japanese doctor involved in his treatment. He was convicted of murder and executed two months later, at the age of 37.
Because he was executed for murder, Sha Fei's story was suppressed in China. In 1986, his family appealed the verdict and a military court reinstated his Party membership.
Reputation and legacy
![Eighth Route Army cavalry October 1937](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5d/Eighth_Route_Army_cavalry_October_1937.jpg)
Scholar Shana Brown wrote that Sha Fei's "images of soldiers crouching on rooftops, peasant armies marching through plumes of dust, and laughing young enlistees, convey an intensity that was the result of close framing devices that plunge the viewer directly into the action". Brown saw in Sha Fei's work both the "kinetic energy" of
Cartier-Bresson
Henri Cartier-Bresson (; 22 August 1908 – 3 August 2004) was a French humanist photographer considered a master of candid photography, and an early user of 35mm film. He pioneered the genre of street photography, and viewed photography as cap ...
's
street photography
Street photography (also sometimes called candid photography) is photography conducted for art or enquiry that features unmediated chance encounters and random incidents within public places. Although there is a difference between street and ca ...
and the "rawness" of
Robert Capa
Robert Capa (born Endre Ernő Friedmann; October 22, 1913 – May 25, 1954) was a Hungarian-American war photographer and photojournalist as well as the companion and professional partner of photographer Gerda Taro. He is considered by some t ...
's combat work, qualities that enable viewers today to "practically smell gunpowder and feel the grit of the battlefield under our feet". Brown also wrote that "although Sha Fei's images eschew the rigidity of much contemporary Communist imagery—a surprising feat given the preponderance of Soviet influence on Chinese visual art from the 1930s onwards—they are still almost always political in nature. Narrating specific instances of military and government action while foregrounding Communist social ideals, they exude optimism and fortitude. Children laugh and smile, young soldiers keep their backs straight under fire, and even Japanese POWs break into song, grateful for the mercy of their Communist captors. The artistry required to make such tableaux appear spontaneous and natural marked Sha Fei as a photographer and propagandist of extraordinary talent."
Sha Fei was careful to preserve and catalog his negatives. He kept those of Lu Xun on himself, which were accidentally buried with him.
Exhibitions of his work in the United States have been held at the
Ohio State University
The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best publ ...
(2009), and at the
Fairbank Center
The Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard University is a post-graduate research center promoting the study of modern and contemporary China from a social science perspective. The center hosts and organizes academic activities, provides re ...
,
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
(March–April 2016). In April 2016, the Fairbank Center held a conference, "The Photographer Who Shaped Modern China: Sha Fei and His World."
Sha Fei's student
Gu Di (顾棣), who followed him for seven years, also became a celebrated photographer and won the Lifetime Achievement Award of the China Photographers Association in 2002. Gu credits Sha Fei as the greatest influence in his life.
Selected works
File:Battle of Pingxingguan 1937.jpg, Battle of Pingxingguan
The Battle of Pingxingguan (), commonly called the Great Victory of Pingxingguan in Mainland China, was an engagement fought on 25 September 1937, at the beginning of the Second Sino-Japanese War, between the Eighth Route Army of the Chinese Co ...
, 1937
File:Eighth Route Army taking Zijingguan Great Wall, 1937.jpg, Eighth Route Army soldier at Zijingguan Great Wall, 1937
File:Battle of Chajianling, Great Wall, Laiyuan, Hebei, autumn 1937.jpg, Battle of Chajianling, Great Wall, Laiyuan, Hebei, autumn 1937
File:Monk soldiers in Wutai County, November 1937 (2).jpg, Monk soldiers in Wutai County
Wutai County () is a county under the administration of the prefecture-level city of Xinzhou, in the northeast of Shanxi Province, China, bordering Hebei province to the east. It is named after Mount Wutai, which is located within its borders. I ...
, 1937
File:Eighth Route Army bugler.jpg, Eighth Route Army bugler, 1942
Notes
References
*
* Shana Brown, "Sha Fei, the Jin-Cha-Ji Pictorial and the Documentary Style of Chinese Wartime Photojournalism", in ''History in Images: Pictures and Public Space in Modern China'' (Berkeley: Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, 2012).
* Eliza Ho, Art, Documentary, and Propaganda in Wartime China: The Photography of Sha Fei (Columbus, OH: East Asian Studies Center, Ohio State University, 2009).
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sha, Fei
1912 births
1950 deaths
Chinese photojournalists
Artists from Guangzhou
War photographers
Chinese people of World War II
People executed for murder
People executed by China by firing squad
Eighth Route Army personnel
Executed people from Guangdong
Chinese people convicted of murder
People convicted of murder by the People's Republic of China