The Met acquires 38 Chinese ink masterworks

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has acquired 38 paintings by renowned Chinese ink artist Zhang Daqian, also known as Chang Dai-chien, whom The Met describes as "one of the most important" painters of the 20th century.

"Chang Dai-chien stands as one of the most important painters of the modern era," Max Hollein, Marina Kellen French director and chief executive officer of The Met, said in a statement. "He combined a deep knowledge of classical Chinese culture with a transnational perspective to fashion a style of ink painting that was both locally rooted and connected to a wider global outlook."

The paintings, acquired by the museum on Sept 17, come from a collection held by the artist's daughter, Sing Sheng Chang. The acquisition was made possible by her gift to honor the memory of her mother and the artist's wife, Chang Hsu Wen-po. They are expected to broaden The Met's vast collection of Chinese art, including those by Zhang.

A selection of Zhang's works will be on display in the Astor Forecourt at The Met later this year. While the staff could not confirm the exact dates, the exhibition is expected to include the master's rare splashed-color and splashed-ink works from the 1960s.

Another selection of his works will be included in an exhibition on 20th century Chinese ink paintings, scheduled for 2028.

Artistic journey

Zhang, who was born in 1899 in Neijiang, Sichuan province, spent the 1920s and 1930s in and around Shanghai and Beijing. In these cities, he painted and set about mastering the tradition of the classics.

After the Japanese invasion of eastern China, Zhang moved inland. From 1941 to 1943, he spent time in the desert oasis of Dunhuang, Gansu province, dedicating himself to studying ancient paintings preserved in the local caves.

"His early commitment to mastering the classical tradition and his two years of diligent study at the Dun­huang caves gave him a unique understanding of Chinese painting history, which he parlayed into decades of pathbreaking exploration from the 1940s to 1980s," Joseph Scheier-Dolberg, the Oscar Tang and Agnes Hsu-Tang curator of Chinese paintings at The Met, said in a statement.

"Chang has long been recognized as an essential modern artist in East Asia, but he has been insufficiently understood in Europe and the Americas. This acquisition will allow The Met to tell Chang's quintessentially modern, transnational story and to position his contribution within a larger narrative of entangled global modernity," Scheier-Dolberg said.

The Met said the acquisition includes several of Zhang's paintings made at the Buddhist cave temple site in Dunhuang in the 1940s, very few of which exist outside of museum collections in Asia. In addition to paintings from the artist's early period (1930s to 1940s), the acquisition also includes his paintings from 1965 to 1968 and some of his unfinished works.

Zhang left the Chinese mainland in 1949 and spent decades sojourning in Hong Kong, Japan, India, Argentina, Brazil, California in the United States, and Europe. He returned to Asia in his final years, and died in 1983.