The Met Acquires 38 Works by Chinese Painter Chang Dai-chien

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has secured a new treasure: 38 works by the renowned Chinese ink painter Chang Dai-chien (Zhang Daqian, 1899–1983). The acquisition was made as a partial gift and partial purchase from the artist’s daughter, Sing Sheng Chang, according to Artnet News.

Among the new works are paintings from the 1960s, the period when Chang came close to full abstraction, spreading waves of radiant color over his characteristic mountains and trees. The collection also includes extremely rare copies he made in the early 1940s of ancient Dunhuang paintings, the Buddhist cave site in northwestern China, as well as a copy of the mysterious 10th-century work “Deer in Autumn Forest” from the Palace Collection.

Another treasure is the self-portrait Chang painted in Hong Kong in 1951, on the eve of more than three decades of searching for a new home, after his forced departure from China in 1949.

The Met’s curator of Chinese painting, Joseph Scheier-Dolberg, says the collection has “intimate history, top-level quality and a range of works the Met was missing.” With this addition, the museum can now trace the artist’s entire life path — from his early decades in China, where he was born in Neijiang in 1899, to his later years in Europe, Argentina, Japan and California, where he lived in Monterey for most of the 1970s.

Some of the new works are expected to go on display before the end of the year. They will be included in the Met’s planned 2028 exhibition of 20th-century Chinese ink painting (guóhuà), while a dedicated Chang exhibition is also being planned. Chang Dai-chien, who died in Taipei in 1983 at the age of 83, is considered one of the greatest Chinese painters of the 20th century.

Source: Artnet News