LS NEWS | February 22, 2019
During her junior year studying abroad at NYU Florence, Feiran Lyu was granted access to the Villa La Pietra’s photography archive to conduct a research project on Harold Acton, the owner of La Pietra who donated the property to NYU in 1994. Of the 17,000 photographs chronicling the lives of the Acton family preserved in the archive, Feiran focused on the more than 200 photographs of Harold Acton’s travels in China during the 1930s. Her research culminated in the installation and curation of a photography exhibition last fall, “Harold in China, 1932–1939: Photographs from the Acton Collection,” with Francesca Baldry, Collection Manager, and Ellyn Toscano, Director.
Feiran carried out on-site research in Beijing as well as Florence to provide a full picture of 1930s China and the reforms engendered by the “New Culture Movement,” which promoted language reform and increased cultural exchange with the West. Says Feiran, “the Acton photographs are an insight to this period, reflecting the prevalent cultural communication between China and the West, through the eyes of a westerner.”
In Spring 2019, Feiran was invited back to La Pietra to participate in the symposium “Harold Acton in China and Chinoiserie at Villa La Pietra,” where she shared her findings on Acton and his contribution to cross-cultural communication.
From left: Edward Chaney, Feiran Lyu, Francesca Baldry, Joanna Waley-Cohen, Peter Stansky, Meredith Martin, Larry Wolff, Perri Klass, and Michelle Ying Ling Huang.
Installation views of the exhibition.