We have just completed installing our current exhibition, “Hung Liu: Works on Paper” which runs through June 3, 2018.
It features a collection of hand-pulled color lithographs by Chinese-born contemporary American artist, Hung Liu, made between 2001 and 2015 in collaboration with Master Printer Bud Shark. Hung Liu, who now lives in Oakland, California, was born in 1948 in Changchun, China and grew up during the Chinese Cultural Revolution.
In 1970 she was sent to the countryside outside of Beijing where she lived and worked among local villagers. She then studied mural painting at The Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing. Liu came to the United States in 1984 where 2 years later she earned an M.F.A. at the University of California-San Diego.
The Wall Street Journal in 2013 called Hung Liu “the greatest Chinese painter in the U.S.”
There are probably many reasons for this claim, but one of the most significant has to be because of her deep connection to the culture and history of her native China. Her work, which has its base in historical Chinese photographs, includes subjects such as refugees, laborers and prostitutes.
Liu’s work is included in the permanent collections of Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York; National Museum of American Art, Washington, D.C.; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, California; The University of Colorado Art Museum, Colorado and many others.