The art historian Professor Michael Sullivan has bequeathed his private collection of modern Chinese art to the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. Professor Sullivan, who died last September aged 96 just one month after visiting Shanghai, was a world authority on modern and contemporary Chinese art. The collection of more than 400 works includes pieces by Qi Baishi, (1864– 1957), Zhang Daqian (1899–1983), and Fu Baoshi (1904–1964) amassed by Michael Sullivan and his wife Khoan from the 1940’s. More recent acquisitions include Landscript (2002) by Xu Bing who was born in 1955. A large part of the collection has never been seen in public. The Museum will display a new selection of works in a small commemorative exhibition, ‘Michael Sullivan: a Life of Art and Friendship’ next March.
The Ashmolean has contained the only gallery dedicated to Chinese painting in Britain since the 1950’s. Some of the bequeathed works have been loaned and displayed over the years at the Ashmolean in the Khoan and Michael Sullivan Gallery which opened in 2000. (Click on any image to enlarge it).