Ming to Modern: Elevating the Everyday in Chinese Art

To celebrate the 90^th anniversary of the Museum’s first Chinese exhibition in 1923, the Newark Museum will feature over 175 treasures of Chinese art acquired by the Newark Museum over the past century, but never before displayed to the public. 

During the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) Chinese emperor’s competed with their forbearers by commissioning new works of art that imitated, honored or improved upon earlier imperial commissions. In China these art objects always included “everyday” items. Tables and chairs were transformed into spectacular sculptures through the addition of gilding, lacquering and mother-of-pearl and colorful cloisonné glass insets. More than simple clothing, splendid silks covered with artful embroideries became phenomenal artistic statements. Birds, cats and butterflies one sees out the window were painted on hanging scrolls, becoming monuments embedded with social commentary—the meta-data of centuries past. Ceramics and enamel wares appeared as jewels on collector’s shelves—both in the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) periods and certainly today. Some of the Newark Museum’s imperial works are the other halves of pairs to holdings in the Palace Museum, Beijing and National Palace Museum, Taipei.

In addition to these Chinese treasures, a portion of the exhibition Under China’s Influence will showcase ceramics made in the West that were inspired by Chinese ceramics—both historic and contemporary.