Giant Pandas
Two giant pandas landed at Dulles in October 2024 and went on public view that January. Xiang Li had painted pandas once before, in 2012, in ink and pale washes. Qing Bao and Bao Li sent her back to them in full color — pandas at a wedding, on a surfboard, under a snowman, and at every festival in the Chinese year.
- Paintings
- 37
- Series
- 3
- Public mural
- 1
- Pieces in the shop
- 106
Photographs © 2025 Mel Taing
Imagining a Greener, More Joyful Chinatown
Pao Arts Center commissioned eight murals for Experience Chinatown 2025, on the theme Imagine a Greener Future for Chinatown, and hung them on Chinatown storefronts from 30 August to 17 October. Xiang Li and her daughter Fei Wu made the one on Happy Lamb Hot Pot, at 693 Washington Street.
It is the panda paintings taken outdoors. The figures were redrawn in flat color, cut as window decals and applied across the restaurant's front windows at close to life size — pandas playing the drums, holding Olympic medals, standing on the globe, standing among bright flowers and birds. Harmony between people, animals and the land they share. The artists' own line for it: each panda brings a story, honoring family, health, play, music, and love for the Earth.
Xiang Li and Fei Wu · Happy Lamb Hot Pot, 693 Washington St, Boston, MA 02116
On view 30 August – 17 October 2025
Painted first
For Qing Bao and Bao Li
Two pandas and no others. Every painting in this series is a pair, which is the point of it — the National Zoo's couple, taken through every festival in the Chinese year and then through an ordinary American one.
15 paintings · click any one to see it whole
Lunar New Year
A lion-dance head, firecrackers and a table of fruit — the whole first day of the year in one picture.
Lantern Festival
Tangyuan in the bowl, the red lantern lit: the fifteenth night, and the end of New Year.
Tanghulu
Candied hawthorns on a stick, sold on Beijing streets all winter.
Firecrackers
Knitted scarves, a lit string of crackers, and the split second before the noise.
Building a Snowman
A snowman in a red hat and scarf, and the snow still coming down.
The Wedding
Two pandas nested inside one enormous peony — the flower of wealth and honor, doing the work a red veil would.
Valentine's
A red bow, a pink heart and one rose, handed over.
The Bottle
The larger one holds the bottle. A pair, but not the way the others are — see `unfinished`.
Balloons
Ink, with two balloons in color. The only color in the picture is the part that floats.
Reading and Painting
One panda reads; the other is painting a dove on a scroll. The third of the three that went into the mural.
Drum and Cymbals
The drum panda went up on a Chinatown storefront at twenty times this size.
Guitar and Song
Guitar, microphone, and a teddy bear brought along to listen.
The Rocking Horse
Ice Cream
Surfing
One wave, one board, two pandas going over together.
Other Giant Pandas
The rest of the current work — pandas on their own, pandas in threes, two paintings in the Qing-court fan format and two ink scrolls. Same years and the same studio; simply not a couple, so not Qing Bao and Bao Li.
9 paintings · click any one to see it whole
Watching the Sunset
A fan painting: three pandas, a landscape behind them, and nothing happening.
Grandfather and the Twins
Painted on a gold fan — the Qing court format, put to work on soap bubbles.
Family of Three
Three pandas and one bamboo sprig. WordPress holds this file twice — the second copy is dropped, see `excluded`.
On the Branch
Ink monochrome on a hanging scroll, with a full inscription — the closest of these to her Forbidden City work.
Panda and Dragon
Ink monochrome, brush-inscribed and sealed. The dragon holds the pearl; the panda has taken it.
The Bright Birds
Gold ground, a rose, and five birds at once. One of the three paintings that became the Chinatown mural.
The Girl in the Panda Hood
She is holding a dove. Nearly every picture in this set hides one of these.
Girl, Panda, Peonies
The Reader
Green spectacles, and a book held the wrong way up.
The 2012 set
The first pandas: ink and pale wash on paper, sage grounds, no festivals and no props to speak of. Painted twelve years before the new pair arrived, and worth seeing beside them.
13 paintings · click any one to see it whole
Three in the Bamboo
Hanging from the Branch
On the Bamboo Branch
Under the Willow
The Old Stump
Moon Cradle
The only night scene she has painted of them.
The Persimmon
The Basket
Flower and Cherries
Among the Balls
Colored Balls
The Little Painter
Palette, three brushes, and a still life set up on the floor.
Ink Study
No color at all — two pandas and a bamboo screen.
大熊猫
Why pandas
The giant panda has carried diplomatic weight since 1972, when China sent Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing to Washington and the phrase panda diplomacy entered the language. Xiang Li has painted her share of state subjects — thirty-seven years restoring imperial painting inside Beijing's Forbidden City, and two thousand years of empresses since. The pandas are the other half of that: an animal both countries agree to love, painted with no ceremony in it at all.
The new set began after Bao Li and Qing Bao arrived at the Smithsonian's National Zoo on 15 October 2024, on a ten-year agreement that keeps them in Washington until 2034. They made their public debut that January. The paintings that followed put pandas inside the Chinese festival calendar — tangyuan at the Lantern Festival, tanghulu on a winter street, firecrackers and a lion-dance head at New Year — and then inside an ordinary American one: ice cream, a rocking horse, a surfboard, Valentine's roses.
Three are ink monochrome on paper, brush-inscribed and sealed, closer to the studio work of her Beijing years. Two more use the fan format the Qing court used, one of them on gold ground. The rest are gouache-bright, and are the most openly joyful pictures she makes.
Where they have been shown
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Imagining a Greener, More Joyful Chinatown — Experience Chinatown mural
Happy Lamb Hot Pot, Boston Chinatown
August 30 – October 17, 2025
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Chinese Empresses and Pandas
Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH)
March 2025 – 2026
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Solo Exhibit
Jean McDonough Arts Center (JMAC)
May 2024
Take a panda home
Every panda piece in the store comes off one of the paintings above. Checkout runs on the Shopify store; the same designs are on Etsy.
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Shoulder bags, totes, laptop sleeves
36 pieces · from $30.17
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30 to 1000 pieces
21 pieces · from $13.80
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18 pieces · from $17.03
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Cushions, blankets, ornaments
16 pieces · from $16.15
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10 pieces · from $59
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3 pieces · from $41.59
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2 pieces · from $20
Wall art
Panda canvases are not listed yet
The empresses sell as gallery-wrapped canvas in four sizes, from $119 to $269, shipping free. The pandas do not — there is no panda canvas or art print in the store today, only the goods below. Anyone who wants one on a wall should write to the studio in the meantime.
Ask the studio →Questions
Who are Qing Bao and Bao Li?
The two giant pandas at the Smithsonian's National Zoo in Washington, DC. They arrived from China on 15 October 2024 under a ten-year agreement and made their public debut that January. Xiang Li began the current panda paintings in their honor.
Are these paintings on silk, like the empresses?
No. The empresses are gemstone mineral pigment on 100% silk and take three to six months each. The pandas are painted on paper — three of them in ink monochrome, three on gold ground, the rest in bright opaque color. They are the quick, joyful end of the studio.
Can I buy a panda painting?
The originals are held by the studio and sold privately. Panda canvases and prints are not in the online store yet; the bags, puzzles, mugs and home goods below are. Write to the studio about an original or a commission.
Where have the pandas been shown?
As a public mural in Boston's Chinatown for Experience Chinatown 2025, on the Happy Lamb Hot Pot storefront at 693 Washington Street; at the Jean McDonough Arts Center in Worcester; and in the long-running installation across Massachusetts General Hospital sites.
More from the studio
Canvas prints, scarves, puzzles and more — from $14.
Two full-color hardcovers — 217 empresses, 413 painted characters.
Questions? Write to xiangliart@gmail.com