Zhu Da (Bada Shanren, 1626-1705), Flowers on A River (detail). Handscroll, ink on paper, 18 ½ x 508 7/8 in. (47 x 1292.5 cm). Collection of the Tianjin Museum.

NEW YORK, NY.- In their on-going webinar series to illuminate the multi-layered and exhilarating world of Asian art, Asia Week New York will present The Nuts and Bolts of Chinese Painting: Connoisseurship, Brushwork and Materials on Wednesday, November 16 at 5:00 p.m. EST.

Chinese painting has long attracted a coterie of Asian art collectors and connoisseurs, not to mention many of the major museums around the world which have important holdings in the field. The attraction of Chinese paintings is not only in the beauty of the works, but also in their energy and vitality–expressively produced by the stroke of the brush.

Four noted experts in the field will provide their perspectives. In Fast-forwarding a Landscape: Painting with Brush and Ink, Arnold Chang, the renowned contemporary artist, will demonstrate the distinctive brushwork and painting techniques that comprise this ancient art form, while Willow Weilan Hai of the China Institute will discuss Meet Bada in New York, His “Flowers on a River” from the Tianjin Museum. In his talk, March Highlight: Wang Yuanqi's “Streams and Mountains without End” Joseph Scheier-Dolberg of The Metropolitan Museum of Art will preview Wang’s exceptional landscape set to debut at The Met during Asia Week. Rounding out the panel is Dr. Matthew Edlund, who will offer insights derived from his experiences acquiring Chinese paintings with Art as Words, Painting as Politics. Asian art expert Liz Hammer, who serves as the Production and Content manager of Asia Week New York, will moderate this discussion.

Arnold Chang (Zhang Hong, b. 1954), Landscape After Huang Gongwang, ink on paper, 16 3/4 x 52 5/8 in.

The Distinguished Panelists

Arnold Chang (Zhang Hong) was formerly Director of the Chinese Paintings Department at Sotheby’s and then Chinese Painting specialist at Kaikodo Gallery in NY. He has taught and lectured extensively, including at Columbia University, Arizona State University, Connecticut College, and the University of Colorado. Chang received an M.A. degree from UC Berkeley, where he studied the history of Chinese painting with James Cahill. Arnold also studied painting and connoisseurship with C. C. Wang for twenty-five years. He now works as an artist and is a full time literatus living in the wilds of New Jersey.

Dr. Matthew Edlund, M.D., M.O.H. is an internationally recognized and award-winning expert on rest, sleep, and body clocks who founded the West Coast Regional Sleep Disorders Center and now runs both the Center for Circadian Medicine and The Gulf Coast Sleep Institute in Sarasota, Florida. He has collected Chinese and Japanese paintings since 1993. He is the former vice-president of the Museum of Asian Art (Sarasota) and has donated works to The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Ringling Museum of Art, while loaning art works to numerous museums, including China Institute, the Norton Museum of Art, the Cincinnati Art Museum, Ringling Museum of Art, and others.

Willow Weilan Hai, is the Senior Vice President, Director of China Institute Gallery and Chief Curator of Flowers on a River: The Art of Chinese Flower and Bird Painting, Masterworks from Tianjin Museum and Changzhou Museum. A native of Nanjing, Hai has directed China Institute’s gallery since 2000. She has organized and presented many exceptional and important exhibitions, most from mainland China and many never shown previously in the United States. Among her many notable collaborative exhibitions are The Last Emperor's Collection: Masterpieces of Painting and Calligraphy from the Liaoning Provincial Museum (2008, served as Chief Curator), Dunhuang: Buddhist Art at the Gateway of the Silk Road (2013, served as Project Director), and Art in a Time of Chaos: Masterworks from Six Dynasties China, 3rd - 6th Centuries (2016, served as Chief Curator).

Dr. Joseph Scheier-Dolberg, Oscar Tang and Agnes Hsu-Tang Associate Curator of Chinese Paintings, The Metropolitan Museum of Art has worked as curator for Chinese painting and calligraphy for ten years. In that time, he has reinstalled the galleries for Chinese painting twelve times, with exhibitions on topics ranging from calligraphy to landscape painting to the practice of reclusion. He has published on Chinese portrait painting, Chinese albums, and contemporary art, among other subjects. His current show is entitled Noble Virtues: Nature as Symbol in Chinese Art.

Elizabeth Hammer, Moderator worked for Christie’s auction house as a Chinese Paintings specialist in the early 1990s and again from 2007-2020. Hammer worked in Education at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from 1995 to 2006 and focused on teaching and writing about Asian art. Now Executive Director of the Hammond Museum and Japanese Stroll Garden in North Salem, New York, she also advises private clients, prepares appraisals, consults for Bonhams auction house, and is Production and Content Manager for Asia Week New York as Hammer Fine Art Services, LLC.