Outside of China, there are only four significant collections of Chinese woodcut prints: in Australia, Paris, London, and Colgate’s Picker Art Gallery. The collection was donated by Professor Emeritus Theodore Herman, who taught geography from 1954–81 and founded the Peace Studies Program.
The Picker exhibited Colgate’s collection in the fall to coincide with the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China. The exhibition displayed more than 200 woodcut pieces that showcase the historical conflicts and social movements leading to the founding of China. “There’s a lot of good historical context and there’s a lot to learn about that particular moment in Chinese history,” says Nicholas West, curator of the gallery and co-director of University Museums.
Woodcut printing began in China and has “usually been thought of as a medium for the masses, more than things like painting and sculptures,” West says. With this show, woodcuts are recognized as a Chinese art medium that responded to the traditional division between “high art” and “low art,” he explains.
Herman lived in China with his wife, Evelyn Mary Chen Shiying Herman, from 1936–48. During that time, he befriended many woodcut artists and was given pieces to show in the United States when he left China — which, due to the political climate at the time, proved to be difficult.
“[There was] a lot of anticommunist sentiment, and it was quite dangerous to be associated with China or any of the communist powers,” West says. “He ended up working here as a geography professor [and] when he was trying to figure out what to do with these prints, he decided to donate them to the Picker.”
Leslie Ann Eliet, curator of the exhibition, was working as a director’s secretary and registrar for the Picker Gallery when she received the prints in 1980 and began inventorying the collection. A printmaker herself, Eliet was familiar with the medium and conducted her own research on the collection, which included a trip to China to interview a few of the surviving artists. Decades later, Eliet presented the idea of an exhibition to West.
“I knew that this had never been seen in its entirety in the United States, and I had done a lot of research and kept up with some of the artists,” Eliet says.
Outside of the historical significance of the collection, there’s a lot to be learned from the medium itself, West says: “These images are really accessible. They are expressive, they are emotive, and they are quite narrative.”