Media

“Encounters” Twentieth-century Chinese art from
the Khoan and Michael Sullivan Collection
at the University Museum and Art Gallery

22 Feb 2013

An exhibition of twentieth-century Chinese art from the collection of Khoan and Michael Sullivan will be held at the University Museum and Art Gallery of the University of Hong Kong (HKU) from February 23 to April 7, 2013 to celebrate the University of Hong Kong Museum Society’s 25th anniversary, and the University Museum and Art Gallery’s 60th anniversary. This is also the first time that the Sullivan collection has been shown in Hong Kong.

An opening ceremony of the exhibition was held today (February 22, Friday) at the University Museum and Art Gallery. Professor Michael Sullivan, Emeritus Fellow, St. Catherine’s College, Oxford; Mrs Bonnie Kwan Huo, Chairman, The University of Hong Kong Museum Society; Ms Belinda Au, Director, Michelle Art Services, and HKU Pro-Vice-Chancellor Professor Chow Shew-ping officiated at the ceremony.

The exhibition
The exhibition will be held from 23 February to 7 April 2013. The aim is to honour Professor Sullivan’s considerable contributions as a pioneer of Chinese art history and especially the study of twentieth-century Chinese painting. The collection features in particular works that explore the relationships between western and Chinese media and expressions. Among the exhibits will be paintings by artists such as Wu Guanzhong, Huang Yongyu, Pang Xunqin, Wu Zuoren, Zhang Daqian, Qi Baishi, Zao Wuji, and Lü Shoukun; sculptors Zhu Ming and Wang Keping, as well as Hong Kong artists Wan Qingli, Chu Hing-wah, Wucius Wong, Tan Zhicheng and Nancy Chu Woo. The selection also includes two albums that were created and gifted to the Sullivans by artists in Hong Kong.

Professor Michael Sullivan is a pioneer of modern Chinese art history. He began his unique engagement with the art and artists of China while working at the West China Union University in Chengdu in the 1940s. Here he and his late wife Khoan (Wu Huan) developed friendships with many artists and intellectuals who sought refuge from the instability of war. Khoan and Michael began collecting art here in the mid-1940s.

The Sullivan collection is inseparable from the relationships that underlie it, as well as the circumstances of the artists through the civil war, the Great Leap Forward (1958) and the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976). Many of the works were gifted to Khoan and Michael by the artists themselves, and in 1960 their good friend, Geoffrey Hedley, a British diplomat in China, bequeathed his collection to them, which included works by masters such as Fu Baoshi, Ren Bonian, and Walasse Ting among many others. The Sullivans began to travel again to China in the 1970s and were able to renew their earlier friendships with artists after the end of the Cultural Revolution. Inspired by the new forms of art being produced in China, Khoan and Michael began to actively acquire art. During this time, they also became acquainted with the modern art movements in Taiwan and Hong Kong, represented by artists such as Liu Guosong, and Lü Shoukun.

Conference and roundtable
To explore the themes raised in the exhibition, an international conference and roundtable discussion: “Encounters: Art and Artists of 20th century China”, will take place at the University of Hong Kong on Saturday 23rd February 2013. Free and open to the public. No registration required. For details, please visit: http://www.cpao.hku.hk/media/poster.pdf

Brief biography
Professor Michael Sullivan (b. 1916) graduated from the University of Cambridge in 1939. He travelled to China in 1940 to work with the International and Chinese Red Cross and conduct archaeological work. There he met his future wife, biologist Khoan (Wu Huan) and they got married in 1943. After his return to England in 1946, he studied Chinese at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS). He received his Ph.D from Harvard University in 1952. He taught at the University of Malaya in Singapore, where he established the University Art Museum, before returning to London in 1960 to take up a lectureship at SOAS. In 1966 he took up the Chair of Oriental Art at Stanford University (later endowed by Alan Christensen) where he remained until 1984. Following his return to England, he became Emeritus Fellow at St. Catherine’s College, Oxford. His most notable publications include Art and Artists of Twentieth-Century China (1996), Modern Chinese Artists: A Biographical Dictionary (2006), The Arts of China (now in its 5th edition), The Meeting of Eastern and Western Art (1989), and The Birth of Landscape Painting in China (1962).

The exhibition has been made possible by sponsorship from the University of Hong Kong Museum Society and Michelle Art Services, who are celebrating their 35th anniversary in 2013.

For media enquiries, please contact Communications and Public Affairs Office:
Manager (Media) Ms Rhea Leung tel: 2857 8555 / 9022 7446 email: rhea.leung@hku.hk or Knowledge Exchange Officer Ms Julie Chu tel: 2859 2437 email: juliechu@hku.hk

(From Left) Ms Belinda Au, Director, Michelle Art Services; HKU Pro-Vice-Chancellor Professor Chow Shew-ping; Professor Michael Sullivan, Emeritus Fellow, St. Catherine’s College, Oxford; Mrs Bonnie Kwan Huo, Chairman, The University of Hong Kong Museum Society; and Dr. KNOTHE, Florian, Director, University Museum and Art Gallery officiated at the opening ceremony.

Professor Michael Sullivan, Emeritus Fellow, St. Catherine’s College, Oxford

Professor Michael Sullivan, Emeritus Fellow, St. Catherine’s College, Oxford (Left) and Professor Liu, Kuo-Sung (Right)

Wu Guanzhong (1919–2010)
Wuxi and Lake Tai
1973
Oils on panel
26 x 34 cm

Lü Shoukun (Lui Shou-kwan) (1919–1975)
Houses and Squatters’ Huts on Hong Kong
Ink and wash on paper
141 x 65 cm

Qi Baishi (1863–1957)
Landscape with Blue Mountain
1949
Ink and colour on paper
94.3 x 61.7 cm