The first Golden Chrysanthemum Award ceremony for Yangtze River folk art was held in Zhangjiagang Stadium, Jiangsu province, on Nov 16, drawing the curtain on the three-day Yangtze River Folk Art Expo hosted from Nov 14-16.

The selection of the Golden Chrysanthemum Award received some 200 folk crafts from 12 provinces and regions, with 13 finalists awarded with gold medals, covering Suzhou embroidery in Jiangsu province, Thangka from the Tibet autonomous region and Guizhou batik (wax printing).

According to Xiong Li, a gold medal winner as well as an inheritor of Guizhou batik, her award-winning work was unique for its ecological materials and casual creation without a sample.

The award also included 26 silver medals, 38 bronze medals and 54 excellent awards. During the ceremony, folk artists from the Yangtze River areas donated 30 masterpieces to the Zhangjiagang Yangtze River Culture Museum, including a three-meter paper-cut replication of a painting by Xu Beihong, the acclaimed father of modern Chinese painting.