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Join us Wednesday, 3 April 2024 at 3PM EST for a conversation with:
Pucker Gallery Artist
Tao Wang
Pritzker Chair of Arts of Asia, Executive Director of Initiatives in Asia, and Curator of Chinese Art at the Art Institute of Chicago
Andrew Maske
Professor, Museum Studies, Wayne State University
Director, Gordon L. Grosscup Museum
Robert D. Mowry
Emeritus Alan J. Dworsky Curator of Chinese Art and Emeritus Head of the Department of Asian Art at the Harvard Art Museums
Bernard Pucker
Gallery Director
This event will be an opportunity to share Hongwei's most recent work as he continues to extend his artistic journey. His unique combination of porcelain and stainless steel has enabled him to create stunning forms that highlight the beauty of crystalline glazes and reflective surfaces. A visual poetry of beauty! His exhibition Master of Innovation is on view at Pucker Gallery through 5 May 2024.
Li Hongwei (b.1980, China) is a contemporary artist who works and lives in Beijing and New York. His works have been acquired by the British Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Art Institute of Chicago, The Israel Museum, the Harvard Art Museums, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, and the Long Museum, among others. His works have been exhibited in numerous international art institutions, including the National Art Museum of China, the Louvre, the U.S. Embassy, the New Mexico Museum of Art, the Fox Art Gallery of the University of Pennsylvania, The Art Institute of Chicago, the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, the Long Museum, the Dublin Castle in Ireland, and others. In 2013, he was awarded the Taylor Prize by the 2013 France International Salon. Hongwei holds a bachelor’s degree in sculpture from the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, and a master’s in ceramic art from the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University in Alfred, NY. As a visiting artist at Alfred, he has been invited to give lectures at different institutions, including Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Tao Wang is the Pritzker Chair of Arts of Asia, Executive Director of Initiatives in Asia, and Curator of Chinese Art at the Art Institute of Chicago, which he joined in 2015. His recent exhibitions include Expressive Ink: Paintings by Yang Yanping and Zeng Shanquing (2019), Mirroring China’s Past: Emperors and Their Bronzes (2018), and Xu Longsen: Light of Heaven (2018). Prior to joining the Art Institute, Tao worked as Senior Vice President and Head of Chinese Works of Art at Sotheby’s New York and was a professor at the University of London. He has published widely on topics related to Chinese art and archaeology and has won the China National Book Award and Antiquity’s Best Article prize. Tao holds a PhD in early Chinese culture from the University of London.
Andrew Maske received his doctorate in Japanese Art History from Oxford University. As a Professor of Museum Studies at Wayne State University he teaches courses concentrating on the art of East Asia (China, Korea, and Japan). As Curator of Japanese Art at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, MA between 1999 and 2005, he developed the exhibition Geisha: Beyond the Painted Smile and served as editor and primary author of the critically acclaimed volume by the same name. This exhibition explored Japanese geisha both as the subject of artwork and as performing artists themselves from the eighteenth century to the present day. Dr. Maske also played a major role in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s 2003 catalogue, Turning Point: Oribe and the Arts of Sixteenth Century Japan, which examined the revolution in Japanese aesthetics that began in the late sixteenth century. He has published articles and reviews in Archaeometry, Journal of Japanese Studies, Orientations, and Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan. In 2006-2007 he was awarded a Fulbright research fellowship to study the development of contemporary ceramics in China.
Now retired, Robert D. Mowry was the Alan J. Dworsky Curator of Chinese Art and Head of the Department of Asian Art at the Harvard Art Museums and also Senior Lecturer in Chinese and Korean Art in Harvard’s Department of the History of Art and Architecture. A specialist in Chinese art, he has also done considerable work with Korean art, publishing in the field and building a collection of Korean paintings and ceramics for the Harvard Art Museums. Although he majored in European art history, French, and medieval humanities as an undergraduate at the University of Kansas (BA, 1967), with plans to study late medieval architecture and manuscript painting, his two years in Korea as a U.S. Peace Corps Volunteer in the late 1960s sparked an abiding interest in Asian art and culture. Since his retirement from Harvard in 2013, he has been serving as a Senior Consultant in Chinese and Korean Art at Christie’s, working primarily with Christie’s New York offices, he also has responsibilities toward the London, Paris, and Hong Kong offices.
Bernie Pucker is the director of Pucker Gallery, which he founded with his wife, Sue, on Boston's historic Newbury Street in 1967. Pucker Gallery represents over fifty artists from around the world, presenting approximately ten exhibitions annually, often paired with artist talks, virtual “WebinARTs,” and Gallery receptions. Bernie is currently a Board Member at the Japan Society, Boston, and the Jewish Publication Society. He also serves on the Leadership Council for Facing History and Ourselves as well as the Artistic Advisory Board for the Terezin Music Foundation. Previously, he has served as President of Solomon Schechter Day School, President of the Newbury Street League, and Board Member for the Friends of Copley Square and The Unity Project, among others. Bernie received his MA in Modern Jewish History from Brandeis University and his BA in History and English Literature from Columbia College.