This book is about three figures from King’s College, Cambridge, who together initiated art-historical debate about Chinese art in England in the early decades of the twentieth century.

The Cambridge Trio, composed of Roger Fry, Arthur Waley and Goldsworthy Dickinson, believed that Chinese art was modern and accessible to Western audiences. With their personal and professional lives intertwined, the three men were able to reach congruent and corroborating conclusions about Chinese art through formalist aesthetics, historical study, and sociological analysis. Although studies of Roger Fry’s criticism, Arthur Waley’s translations, and Goldsworthy Dickinson’s political work abound, little work has so far been published about their writings on Chinese art.

Through an examination of the trio’s individual perceptions and approaches towards Chinese art as well as a juxtaposition of their methodologies and theories, this book argues for the existence of a highly-coherent intellectual structure shared by the Cambridge Trio. These three thinkers should be credited with changing the Western perception of Chinese art, a ground- breaking labour fostered and supported by King’s College and the University of Cambridge.