Hsio-yen Shih (1933–2001) was a Chinese-born Canadian art historian who specialized in early Chinese and Japanese paintings, as well as ancient Chinese pottery and bronzeware. She was director of the National Gallery of Canada from 1977 to 1981.

Early life

Hsio-yen Shih was born in Hubei,

Republic of China Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the northeast ...

. When she was 6, her father Chao-yin Shih () served as a diplomat for the Nationalist government in Canada, and Hsio-yen lived in

Ottawa Ottawa (, ; Canadian French: ) is the capital city of Canada. It is located at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River in the southern portion of the province of Ontario. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the core ...

for a time before returning to China. She attended high school in Shanghai before the Chinese Communist Revolution. After the Chinese Civil War she attended

Wellesley College Wellesley College is a private women's liberal arts college in Wellesley, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1870 by Henry and Pauline Durant as a female seminary, it is a member of the original Seven Sisters Colleges, an unofficial g ...

in Massachusetts, graduating in Art History in 1955. After gaining a M.A. in 1958 from the University of Chicago in Chicago, Illinois, she went on to study under Alexander Soper at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania. Her 1961 Ph.D. thesis is titled ''Early Chinese Pictorial Style: From the Later Han to the Six Dynasties''.

Career

From 1961 to 1976, Hsio-yen Shih worked in Toronto, Canada, holding joint appointments at the Far Eastern Department of the

Royal Ontario Museum The Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) is a museum of art, world culture and natural history in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is one of the largest museums in North America and the largest in Canada. It attracts more than one million visitors every year ...

(ROM) and the Department of East Asian Studies of the University of Toronto. She became Curator of the Far Eastern Department of ROM in 1968. In 1971 she became a full professor. From 1973 to 1974 she was Visiting Professor to the Institute of Chinese Studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong in Hong Kong. In 1977 she moved to Ottawa to become Director of the National Gallery of Canada. She resigned in 1981 in response to budget cuts, and thereafter moved to Hong Kong, where she served as the Head of Department of Fine Arts at the University of Hong Kong until 1988. She retired in 1993, and spent her last years in Toronto.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Shih, Hsio-yen 1933 births 2001 deaths Chinese art historians Canadian art historians Chinese emigrants to Canada Historians from Hubei Chinese women academics Canadian women historians University of Chicago alumni Wellesley College alumni Bryn Mawr College alumni University of Hong Kong faculty University of Toronto faculty