Scholars Shi-Yee Liu and Tamara Bentley, both contributors to the Chen Hongshou exhibition catalog, illuminate different periods in the artist's career. Liu, assistant research curator of Chinese art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, considers the role of popular culture in the artist’s early work, demonstrating possible inspiration from woodblock illustrations of novels and plays, popular and functional paintings and prints, and cult and theatrical imagery. Bentley, associate professor of Asian art history at Colorado College, explores enigma and intertextuality in Chen’s late work.

This program is copresented by UC Berkeley’s Institute for East Asian Studies and Center for Chinese Studies.