Chinese Embroidery Research, Practice, and Publication

Shao Xiaocheng: Research, Practice, and Publication in Chinese Embroidery

Shao Xiaocheng is a Chinese embroidery researcher, artist, restorer, and author. Her work brings together close study of historical textiles, practical knowledge of stitches and materials, field investigation, conservation and restoration, publication, and teaching. She is one of the principal creative and research contributors to Chinese Embroidery Institute, known in China as 北京邵晓琤织绣研究院 (Beijing Shao Xiaocheng Embroidery Research Institute).

Studying Embroidery Through Objects and Practice

Shao’s research begins with the object: its ground fabric, thread, stitch structure, colour, damage, later alteration, and traces of use. She compares what can be seen in the textile with historical images, written records, and the knowledge gained through making. This method runs through her work on Chinese embroidery stitches, regional practices, kesi, raised embroidery, and embroidered objects requiring conservation or reconstruction.

Four Distinct Relationships to Historical Work

The Institute’s work includes several distinct modes of reproduction and historical practice. It has completed object-specific reproductions of two surviving Song embroideries, 梅竹鹦鹉图 and 瑶池跨鹤图. Tian nü xian hua (Deva Offering Flowers) represents a different mode: a painting-to-embroidery reproduction designed and embroidered by Shao Xiaocheng from the Southern Song album leaf catalogued by the National Palace Museum, Taipei, under Liu Songnian. It translates the painting’s seven-figure composition, gestures, line and colour relationships into the materials and stitch language of Song-style embroidery rather than copying a surviving historical embroidery. 山鹊枇杷图 is a contemporary Song-style embroidery developed from Song painting without being presented as an object-specific reproduction. 花卉 is a Song-style material and technical study using aged silk-paper support, made to test an approach relevant to the reproduction or restoration of silk-ground Song embroidery in museum collections.

Object-specific reproductions of surviving Song embroideries

Painting-to-embroidery reproduction

Song-style creation and material study

Field Research and the Study of Regional Stitches

Shao has also worked from textiles still held in communities and private households. A 2023 profile in China Culture Daily reported on her research into Xing embroidery, embroidery from Yunxi, Hubei, and Miao braided-thread embroidery in Kaili, Guizhou. The report describes a process of visiting local communities, examining surviving objects, identifying stitch structures, and organising the material for teaching and publication.

Her 2024 book 邢绣 (Xing Embroidery, working English title) presents this work in detail. The book records research begun in 2011 and connects historical and local materials with field photographs, stitch identification, diagrams, samples, and teaching projects. When EmbArts refers to the book’s historical arguments or classification of stitches, those conclusions are attributed to Shao rather than presented as an external scholarly consensus.

Professional Experience & International Exchange

Museum-published writing

In 2022, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco published Shao Xiaocheng’s article, “Guo Pei’s Embroidered Universe: Stitch by Stitch”, in connection with Guo Pei: Couture Fantasy at the Legion of Honor. The museum page gives the byline and publication date: May 12, 2022.

2008 Asian Art Museum teaching

In August 2008, Shao Xiaocheng taught Chinese embroidery at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco, including instruction in its Gu Embroidery Workshop on August 9–10. The programme covered Chinese embroidery history and styles, Gu embroidery, and practical work with stitches and colour arrangements. Read the museum’s programme in a historical web archive.

The AsiaAlive event poster, Gu Embroidery Artists from China, features Shao under the spelling SHAO XIAO-CHENG. It lists embroidery demonstrations in the museum’s North Court on July 31–August 3 and August 5–10, from noon to 4 pm. The demonstration programme and the two-day Gu Embroidery Workshop were distinct activities within the visit.

Conservation work documented in 2012

A 2012 report recorded Shao Xiaocheng’s work on a privately held Japanese embroidered folding screen, including reconstruction of the missing head of a fishing figure from surviving visual evidence and the selection of substitute materials for damaged details.

IOV gathering in Prague

Shao Xiaocheng attended the IOV World General Assembly in Prague in April 2012. IOV event archive.

Read the Professional Experience & International Exchange record.

Selected Publications

The formal interior credits for Chinese Embroidery: An Illustrated Stitch Guide read: Text by Shao Xiaocheng; Works by Shao Xiaocheng and Xiao Yao.

Her Chinese-language books include A Compendium for Appreciating Chinese Embroidery, Illustrated Classic Chinese Embroidery Stitches: Learning Embroidery with a Master (2018), and Xing Embroidery.

She co-authored Illustrated Compendium of Classic Chinese Embroidery Stitches: Learning Embroidery with a Master (2022) with Yao Xiao. She is the author of The Illustrated Art of Embroidery, for which Yao Xiao served as responsible editor. Chinese-language titles are given here in English translation; the full publication record retains the original titles and verified publication details.

Selected Exhibition Records

Public institutional records currently confirm 梧桐绶带图 in 2011 and 2012, the kesi work 多景楼（米芾书法） by Xiao Lin and Shao Xiaocheng in the 2014 biennale record, and 锦绣年华 by Shao Xiaocheng and Xiao Yao in the 2018 biennale record.

The Institute’s exhibition files provide a fuller biennale sequence:

• 2012, First China Contemporary Arts and Crafts Biennale: 繁花凤舞, 唐花图案, and 牧牛图.
• 2014, Second Biennale: 西施, 蓝鹊枇杷图, and the kesi work 米芾书法手卷·多景楼.
• 2016, Third Biennale: 大千画·绿度母.
• 2018, Fourth Biennale: 锦绣年华, by Shao Xiaocheng and Xiao Yao.
• 2025, Seventh Biennale: 喜庆吉祥, by Shao Xiaocheng and Xiao Yao.

The 2016 and 2025 entries remain identified as Institute project records unless a corresponding public institutional page is added. None of these entries is presented as an award or collection record.