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The Loewentheil Collection has launched its first virtual exhibition of selections from the world’s largest and finest collection of early photography of China.
Seizing Shadows: Rare Photographs by late Qing Dynasty Masters
Announcing the first virtual exhibition of photographs by early Chinese masters of photography from the world’s leading collection.
The Loewentheil Collection is launching its first virtual exhibition of selections from the world’s largest and finest collection of early photography of China.
“Seizing Shadows: Rare Photographs by late Qing Dynasty Masters,” a virtual exhibition in English and Chinese, is the first exhibition devoted to photographs by pioneering Chinese photographers.
The Loewentheil Collection’s virtual exhibition is filled with engaging multimedia content that includes never before digitized or published photographs by master Chinese photographers of the late Qing dynasty. Captivating lifelike animations preserve the aesthetics of the original photographs, and educational videos and descriptive text set these rare 150-year-old photographs in the context of China’s artistic, cultural, and dynastic history. Modern digital editing plays with the visual perspective of these photographs, giving visitors the experience of exploring and discovering the people, cities, and landscapes of 19th-century China.
The exhibition presents early photographs of sites and peoples of late Qing dynasty China as well as images of the ancient Chinese art that influenced these photographers. Visitors can zoom in and out of images created 150 years ago in China with the wet plate collodion process. This early and exacting photographic process, used by the first Chinese photographers, captured images on glass in intricate detail. A video in the exhibition illustrates the process. The selection of photographic masterpieces from the Loewentheil Collection in this virtual exhibition are placed within the history of photography and among China’s long cultural heritage of poetry, music, art, and more.
The virtual exhibition “Seizing Shadows: Rare Photographs by late Qing Dynasty Masters” presents a selection of the world’s finest nineteenth-century photographs of China by pioneering Chinese art photographers.
The exhibition draws from the Loewentheil Collection, which was assembled over more than three decades of dedicated connoisseurship. The collection comprises about 14,000 photographs spanning the earliest days of paper photography from the 1850s through the 1930s, the majority from before 1900.
The Loewentheil Collection includes unparalleled holdings of photographs by Chinese artists.
The virtual exhibition presents photographs, many never before exhibited or digitized, by major early Chinese photographers and studios including Lai Fong, Liang Shitai, Pun Lun Studio, Tung Hing Studio, A Chan (Ya Zhen) Studio, Pow Kee Photographer Studio, Yu Xunling, and others. The photographs capture the ancient arts, landscapes, monumental architecture, dynamic street life, and diverse people of China.
Examples of photographs from the exhibition include:
An iconic photograph of Empress Dowager Cixi by the Imperial photographer, Yu Xunling. Empress Dowager Cixi was one of the most important women in Chinese history. Photography fascinated the Empress, who carefully orchestrated the concepts and composition of her portraits and tableaus.
A portrait of the Marquis Li Hongzhang made by Liang Shitai, one the foremost nineteenth-century photographers. The compelling photograph conveys the leader’s power and inner character. Li Hongzhang was the first official in China to recognize the power of the photographic image. He circulated his image around China and the world and became the first Chinese dignitary whose face was internationally recognized.
Lai Fong’s photograph of operatic performers represents the coming together of two cornerstones of Qing Dynasty art and culture: Lai Fong, China’s greatest photographer, and the Peking opera. The Peking Opera, also known as Beijing Opera and as Jingju, has been a prestigious Chinese art form for more than two centuries. Lai Fong captured one of the earliest photographs of the art form.
A Chan (Yahzen) Studio created one of the earliest known photographs to depict a guqin, the ancient instrument revered for expressing the soul of the Chinese nation. In A Chan (Yahzen) Studio’s 1870s portrait, a female musician plays the guqin, an instrument critical to Chinese intellectual history. The Loewentheil Collection holds the only known surviving copy of the print by A Chan Studio.
Pow Kee Studio’s view of Yellow Crane Tower in Wuhan depicts the landmark made famous by Tang Dynasty poets Li Bai and Cui Hao. The Pow Kee photograph of Huanghe Lou Pagoda, or Yellow Crane Tower, in the Loewentheil Collection is unique. An artist etched cranes into the sky of the early negative to reflect the legends surrounding the famous pagoda. This is the only known example of the photograph with cranes in flight.
Lai Fong’s rare photograph of Dragon Boat race is one of the earliest photographs of the ancient Chinese tradition. Scholars believe dragon boat races originated at least 2000 years ago during the time of the Warring States. Since the Tang and Song dynasties, the grand celebrations and races of the Dragon Boat (or Duanwu) Festival have been recorded by Chinese calligraphers and painters. Lai Fong masterfully used the new technology of photography to capture the important cultural tradition as it happened. In his photograph Lai Fong captures the drama and excitement of the races, the centerpiece of the annual Dragon Boat Festival.
“Seizing Shadows: Rare Photographs by late Qing Dynasty Masters”” brings together selected works by the leading figures in nineteenth-century photography in China. Each is a pinnacle of photographic art. Photography transports us through time and space with an immediacy transcending the written word. It allows us to experience the people, places, and events of the past and offers a precise view of otherwise inaccessible times. This exhibition of original photographic art created in China captures the architecture of its historic cities, the monuments of revered ancestors, the faces of China's diverse peoples, and the legendary beauty of China, from its rivers to its mountains, from the Great Wall to the Forbidden City.
About
The Loewentheil Collection
The Loewentheil Photography of China Collection, based in New York, is the largest holding of historical photographs of China in private hands.
Founder & Collector: Stephan Loewentheil
Curator of the Loewentheil Collection: Stacey Lambrow
Chinese art consultant and scholar based in New York: Krystal Kunhua Liu
More information:
Seizing Shadows: Rare Photographs by late Qing Dynasty Masters
The Loewentheil Collection
Virtual exhibition
loewentheilcollection.com
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