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| Qiu Ying, Garden for Solitary Enjoyment (small detail), 1515-52. Cleveland Museum of Art |
The Huntington's small Chinese art gallery, the Studio for Lodging the Mind (寓意齋), opened in 2021 with virtually no permanent collection. Ever since it has faced a chicken-or-egg dilemma. It is hard to draw visitors without important art to show, and it's hard to secure loans of light-sensitive art without assurance that they'll find appreciative audiences. Most Americans know little of Chinese ink painting, and the Studio is easy to miss on the Huntington campus, being a considerable schlep (拖) from the entrance.
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| Studio for Lodging the Mind |
Fortunately the Chinese garden has been a popular hit, and its 1720-sf gallery is usually buzzing on weekends. The Studio's current exhibition is a landmark, being the first to assemble significant loans of historic Chinese painting from multiple museums. "Growing and Knowing in the Gardens of China" (through Jan. 6, 2025) has about two dozen Ming and Qing scroll paintings and printed books from the museums of New York (Met), Cleveland, Indianapolis, St. Louis, and San Diego. There is also a contemporary video/participatory piece by Zheng Bo.
The loans include a Qiu Ying scroll, Garden for Solitary Pleasure, from Cleveland (top of post). The Huntington bought a painting by the Ming artist last year.
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| Ma Shouzhen, Fungus, Orchids, Bamboo, and Rocks, 1604. Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields |
Ma Shouzhen was a painter, poet, actor, playwright, and sex worker, one of the Eight Beauties of Qinhuai. Her paintings are known for orchids and outlined leaves, both prominent in the Indianapolis scroll. It's believed that she gave away many of her paintings at parties.
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| Zhou Zhaoxiang, Cleansing Medicinal Herbs in the Stream on a Spring Day, 1703. Cleveland Museum of Art |
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| After Sun Shouping, One Hundred Flowers (small detail), 18th century. Metropolitan Museum of Art |
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