The Liulichang Street 

One of the meanings of "gallery" can be a shop which was devoted to art works.In this sense,the earliest China gallery may be traced up to the Song Dynasty. The dealers often named their shopes "so-and-so xuan" or"so-and-so zhai", because of the Chinese philosophy idea of "unity of the heaven and human beings".The way Chinese enjoyed the paintings was tasting slowing, and coming into more and more delightful stages,just like in a reading room. These were early stage China galleries with  distinguishing  Chinese characteristics.

A Lamp on The Liulichang Street  

In Qing Dynasty, there were great numbers of this kind of gelleries in Beijing, Tianjin, Suzhou, Hangzhou, Changsha, Chengdu, most of which were for common people and selled crafts.

The Friendship Store

Around 1978,"cultural relics shops" appeared in some big cities,such as the famous Friendship Store.These shops were engaged in selling Chinese morndern Calligraphy and Paintings, antiques and so on . However, these shops were for foreign visitors and they are the main source for the courty to obtain foreign exchange.

There was no genuine "gallery" in modern sense until 1987 and the earliest rudiment appeared in Beijing.  Zuiyixian group art gallery by Wang Yun and East Oil Painting Hall appeared in 1987-1988, which was the chief sign that the genuine gallery took on.

 There were many general problems in the galleries of this period: exhibition condition was in a backward state; the exhibition hall was small; no opening,no invitation cards , even no critics getting involved in. The buyers were mainly from Japen or South East Asia and the purchases was not so much.