James McMullan: Leaving China

November 3 – December 23, 2015

On display in the Third Floor

Hall of Fame Gallery At the Society of Illustrators

James McMullan tells the story of the tense journey he and his mother took to escape from China during the Second World War. Leaving their privileged life in Cheefoo just as the war was breaking out, they briefly found sanctuary on an insland in Canada, before taking a fraught voyage on a ship to India where James was enrolled in boarding school.  It was here, in the Himalayas, where he learned of his father’s death in an air crash. James and his mother subsequently spent a year in chaotic post-war Shanghai before returning to Canada. Through all of this, the timid boy gradually learns to recognize his strength in art. Learn more…