Artist Mian Situ’s inspiration for The Entrepreneur, a portrait-within-a-portrait, came from a real photograph dating from the 1890s. Like many recent arrivals to the United States, the man against the backdrop would have wanted something from America to send to his family overseas and a photograph such as this was common.

Situ speculates that the flower in the Chinese man’s hand was most likely the photographer’s idea, as a Chinese man would not have thought to hold a flower in something as important as a photograph. However, in an attempt to learn and fit in with the customs of their new country, such a man (and his family) would be inclined to do what was asked of them or what they were told “should be done in America.” This man and his family have arrived in traditional Chinese dress for their visit to the “modern” American photo studio. The joining of old and new worlds, of east and west, is a central theme in Situ’s work.