Robert MOWRY
Harvard Art Museums
Contemporary Chinese Ink Paintings at the Harvard Art Museums: Exhibitions and Collections
This presentation is not a research report. Rather, it is a simple statement of what types of contemporary Chinese art are collected and exhibited at the Harvard Art Museums. The presentation will touch on the following points:
- Types of contemporary Chinese paintings that are collected:
Ink paintings; artists represented include Liu Dan, Li Huayi, Li Xubai, Liu Guosong, Li Junyi, Chen Qikuan, Xia Yifu, Michael Cherney (aka Qiu Mai), among others
- Where presented
Asian permanent-collection galleries, alongside traditional, or classical, Chinese art
- Collecting strategy; relationship of contemporary ink paintings to other categories of Chinese art collected
- Special exhibitions organized
The New Chinese Landscape: Recent Acquisitions
Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard, 12 August – 12 November 2006
A Tradition Redefined: Modern and Contemporary Chinese Ink Paintings from the Chu-tsing Li Collection, 1950-2000
Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard, 3 November 2007 – 27 January 2008
Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, AZ, 7 July – 14 September 2008
Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, FL, 11 October 2008 – 4 January 2009
Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, 11 February – 24 May 2009
- Relationship of contemporary Chinese ink paintings to the permanent collection, whose strengths include:
Archaic Bronze Ritual Vessels, Shang – Han
Ancient Chinese Jades, Neolithic – Han
Chinese Buddhist Sculpture, Northern Wei – Tang
Chinese Ceramics, Neolithic – Ming
- Relationship of contemporary Chinese ink paintings to the permanent collection, whose weaknesses include:
Classical Chinese paintings (though the collection includes several excellent classical Chinese
paintings, the overall collection is weak)
Qing-dynasty decorative arts (ceramics, lacquer, glass, etc.)
Chinese furniture, period rooms and architectural settings, scholar’s studio installation, etc.
- Challenges: Other Chinese contemporary arts: International-style art, Pop-style art, Post-Modernist
Relationship of Chinese contemporary art to European and American contemporary art