Hung Liu (劉虹) (17 February 1948 – 7 August 2021) was a

Chinese-born American Chinese Americans are Americans of Han Chinese ancestry. Chinese Americans constitute a subgroup of East Asian Americans which also constitute a subgroup of Asian Americans. Many Chinese Americans along with their ancestors trace lineage from m ...

contemporary artist Contemporary art is the art of today, produced in the second half of the 20th century or in the 21st century. Contemporary artists work in a globally influenced, culturally diverse, and technologically advancing world. Their art is a dynamic com ...

. She was predominantly a painter, but also worked with mixed-media and site-specific installation and was also one of the first artists from China to establish a career in the United States. A ten-year retrospective of Liu's work traveled nationally in the U.S. in 1998 and 1999. ''Summoning Ghosts: The Art of Hung Liu'' was a retrospective collection of Liu's work with paintings from more than 40 collections displayed.

Early life and work in China

Hung Liu was born in

Changchun Changchun (, ; ), also romanized as Ch'angch'un, is the capital and largest city of Jilin Province, People's Republic of China. Lying in the center of the Songliao Plain, Changchun is administered as a , comprising 7 districts, 1 county and 3 c ...

, China in 1948. Shortly after her birth, her father was imprisoned for being a member of the Kuomintang of China. In 1958, Hung Liu followed her aunt to

Beijing } Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...

at the age of 10 and entered the famous 北师大女附中 (now

The Experimental High School Attached to Beijing Normal University The Experimental High School Attached to Beijing Normal University (, commonly abbreviated as The Experimental High School Attached to BNU () or Experimental High () and sometimes referred to as ESBNU or SDSZ, is a beacon high school in Xicheng ...

). In 1970, two years after the beginning of China's

Cultural Revolution The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a sociopolitical movement in the People's Republic of China (PRC) launched by Mao Zedong in 1966, and lasting until his death in 1976. Its stated goal ...

, Liu was sent to

Huairou Huairou District () is situated in northern Beijing about from the city center (about a 1½ to 2 hour drive). History In 1995 during the United Nation's 4th World's Women Conference in Beijing, the Civil Society community was forced to meet in t ...

, a small village in the Beijing countryside, where she lived and worked among the local villagers from 1968 to 1972. She attended Beijing Teachers College in 1975 and studied mural painting as a graduate student at the

Central Academy of Fine Arts The Central Academy of Fine Arts or CAFA is an art academy under the direct charge of the Ministry of Education of China. The Manila Bulletin calls the school "China’s most prestigious and renowned art academy". It is one of the most selectiv ...

. As a student Liu's art education had strict limits; the constrained and academic style which students were forced to emulate has been likened by Liu to paint-by-numbers. Although the use of cameras to aid painting was prohibited, Liu rebelled by secretly taking photographs of local farmers in Huairou with their families and making drawings of them.

Work

Her paintings and prints typically featured layered brushstrokes combined with washes of

linseed oil Linseed oil, also known as flaxseed oil or flax oil (in its edible form), is a colourless to yellowish oil obtained from the dried, ripened seeds of the flax plant (''Linum usitatissimum''). The oil is obtained by pressing, sometimes followed by ...

which gave images a drippy appearance. They were often inspired by anonymous Chinese historical and contemporary photographs, particularly those of women, children, refugees, and soldiers. Some have suggested that this visual strategy's surrealism and its absence of Socialist political drive can be seen as the opposite of (or a rejoinder to) the rigid academicism of the Chinese

Socialist Realist Socialist realism is a style of idealized realistic art that was developed in the Soviet Union and was the official style in that country between 1932 and 1988, as well as in other socialist countries after World War II. Socialist realism is ch ...

style in which Liu was trained. It has also been characterized as a metaphor for the loss of historical memory: the dripping in Liu's paintings is described by art critic

Bill Berkson William Craig Berkson (August 30, 1939 – June 16, 2016) was an American poet, critic, and teacher who was active in the art and literary worlds from his early twenties on. Early life and education Born in New York City on August 30, 1939, Bil ...

as "analogous to memory" and how "

emory Emory may refer to: Places * Emory, Texas, U.S. * Emory (crater), on the moon * Emory Peak, in Texas, U.S. * Emory River, in Tennessee, U.S. Education * Emory and Henry College, or simply Emory, in Emory, Virginia, U.S. * Emory University ...

is blurred." Given the pathos that often infuses her works, her painting style has been described by Liu's partner, critic and curator Jeff Kelley, as a kind of "weeping

realism Realism, Realistic, or Realists may refer to: In the arts *Realism (arts), the general attempt to depict subjects truthfully in different forms of the arts Arts movements related to realism include: *Classical Realism *Literary realism, a move ...

." Many works were drawn from the artist's personal collection of 19th century Chinese photographs, a large portion of which feature prostitutes. Liu believed her paintings "gives a spirit to them, the forgotten." As curator Réne de Guzman writes, her paintings bring details of Chinese history and memory into the present for American viewer. Writing for the

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is a modern and contemporary art museum located in San Francisco, California. A nonprofit organization, SFMOMA holds an internationally recognized collection of modern and contemporary art, and was ...

, Kelley suggests that Liu's paintings "challenge the documentary authority of historical photographs by subjecting them to the more reflective process of painting ..Much of the meaning in her paintings comes from the way the washes and drips dissolve the photo-based images, suggesting the passage of memory into history." Since the late 1990s, Liu has occasionally taken historical photographs of non-Chinese women, refugees, migrants, workers, and children as a point of departure. Her ''Strange Fruit'' paintings of the early to mid 2000s depicted Korean "

comfort women Comfort women or comfort girls were women and girls forced into sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese Army in occupied countries and territories before and during World War II. The term "comfort women" is a translation of the Japanese '' ia ...

" forced to serve as prostitutes for Japanese soldiers in the second World War. Several of her paintings draw imagery from the portrait and documentary photographs of the Chinese populace by John Thomson. In her ''American Exodus'' series, Liu addresses American subject matter, creating images of the

Dust Bowl The Dust Bowl was a period of severe dust storms that greatly damaged the ecology and agriculture of the American and Canadian prairies during the 1930s. The phenomenon was caused by a combination of both natural factors (severe drought) an ...

and the

Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

after the photographs of

Dorothea Lange Dorothea Lange (born Dorothea Margaretta Nutzhorn; May 26, 1895 – October 11, 1965) was an American documentary photographer and photojournalist, best known for her Depression-era work for the Farm Security Administration (FSA). Lange' ...

. Pieces such as ''Goddess of Love/Goddess of Liberty'' incorporate significant mixed-media elements (often antique or hand-made objects) either installed in close proximity to or mounted directly onto the piece. Liu cited her installation work as a continuation of the principles she utilized as a muralist "an ability to work in large scale and to take the site specificity of the situation into account. Creating an installation merely required pushing the work out into the third dimension". Liu's paintings also often incorporate a sculptural dimensionality through the use of custom canvases shaped to the contours of their subject matter.

''My Secret Freedom'' paintings

Liu also disobeyed the ban against non-sanctioned art of the Maoist Regime in her series called "My Secret Freedom." These miniature landscape paintings, created during Liu's time at Da Dulianghe, depict scenes of everyday life. Their title refers to the rebellion inherent in their creation: Liu had to hide a small paint box and brushes beneath her coat and painted each tiny image quickly. Jeff Kelley writes that Liu's "intent was radical in China at the time: to paint not in the service of state ideology or party dicta, but simply to paint. To paint for the sheer pleasure of painting."

Immigration and ''Resident Alien'' exhibition

Liu immigrated to the United States in 1984. She is a class of 1986 alumna of the

University of California, San Diego The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Insti ...

. As resident artist at

Capp Street Project Capp Street Project is an artist residency program that was originally located at 65 Capp Street in San Francisco, California. CSP was established as a program to nurture experimental art making in 1983 with the first visual arts residency in the ...

in San Francisco in 1988, Liu painted a series of works whose main focus was the issue of identity as it relates to immigrant status. Among these was the eponymous ''Resident Alien''. This was Liu's first self-portrait, in which the artist painted an enlarged version of her own green card with several pointed changes, e.g. her birthdate of 1948 becoming 1984, the date of her immigration, and her name comically replaced by the words "Fortune Cookie." The off-site exhibition of these works brought Liu her first major art world attention; the painting ''Resident Alien'' also subsequently received numerous treatments and interpretations by scholars of gender identity and women's studies as well as art historians. Dong Isbister proposes that ''Resident Alien'' is best understood via a 'diasporic consciousness,' as Liu asks her audience to "examine how her body is positioned and portrayed in relation to legal, racial, and gender issues based on immigration." The painting evidences the "tension between an ethnic, a national and a transnational identity"; at the same time, Liu "shows resistance to being assimilated into the stereotypes imposed upon her by inserting her own voice." In 1988, as part of her Capp Street Project residency, Liu produced a mural, ''Reading Room'', for the Chinese for Affirmative Action Community Room in San Francisco's Chinatown.

"Jiu Jin Shan (Old Gold Mountain)"

Liu's installation work ''Jiu Jin Shan (Old Gold Mountain)'' (1994) was originally commissioned by the

M.H. de Young Memorial Museum The de Young Museum, formally the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum, is a fine arts museum located in San Francisco, California. Located in Golden Gate Park, it is a component of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, along with the Legion of Hono ...

. In this work, Liu created a "gold mountain" made of 200,000

fortune cookie A fortune cookie is a crisp and sugary cookie wafer usually made from flour, sugar, vanilla, and sesame seed oil with a piece of paper inside, a "fortune", usually an aphorism, or a vague prophecy. The message inside may also include a Chinese ...

s, engulfing a crossroads of railroad tracks. The junction of the tracks references the cultural intersection of East and West, as well as the Chinese immigrants who perished during the building of the

Sierra Nevada The Sierra Nevada () is a mountain range in the Western United States, between the Central Valley of California and the Great Basin. The vast majority of the range lies in the state of California, although the Carson Range spur lies primarily ...

stage of the

transcontinental railroad A transcontinental railroad or transcontinental railway is contiguous railroad trackage, that crosses a continental land mass and has terminals at different oceans or continental borders. Such networks can be via the tracks of either a single ...

. ''Jiu Jin Shan (Old Gold Mountain)'' was also installed at the Mills College Art Museum in 2013 as part of the exhibition ''Hung Liu: Offerings''.

"Going Away, Coming Home" airport installation

In November 2006, Liu's public art installation ''Going Away, Coming Home'' was unveiled at the

Oakland International Airport Oakland International Airport is an international airport in Oakland, California, United States, 10 miles (16 km) south of downtown located in the San Francisco Bay Area. It is owned by the Port of Oakland and has domestic passenger f ...

. The installation is a 160-foot long wall of windows in the Terminal 2 concourse. The installation was commissioned by the Port of Oakland for $300,000. The installation depicts 80 cranes that are meant to comfort and give blessings to people who are leaving their homes or returning from travel. Liu was inspired by a silk Chinese scroll painting from the 12th century, which also depicts cranes symbolizing good luck. Liu painted the work with enamel in her signature style of allowing the paint to drip. To make the work, she collaborated with the 140-year-old German glass fabrication company Derix Glasstudios.

''Summoning Ghosts'' retrospective

''Summoning Ghosts: The Art of Hung Liu'' was a retrospective collection of Liu's work, including around 80 paintings and an assortment of photographs, studies, and sketchbooks. It remains the most extensive exhibit of her work to date, with paintings from more than 40 collections displayed. The exhibit featured works from throughout Liu's artistic career, beginning from the late 1960s; these paintings draw upon her personal history and experience of the Maoist regime, the

Great Leap Forward The Great Leap Forward (Second Five Year Plan) of the People's Republic of China (PRC) was an economic and social campaign led by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from 1958 to 1962. CCP Chairman Mao Zedong launched the campaign to reconstruc ...

, and the

, as well as drawing from themes of Ancient China. Réne de Guzman, the chief curator at the

Oakland Museum of California The Oakland Museum of California or OMCA (formerly the Oakland Museum) is an interdisciplinary museum dedicated to the art, history, and natural science of California, located adjacent to Oak Street, 10th Street, and 11th Street in Oakland, Cali ...

, organized the exhibit in collaboration with Hung Liu. The artist describes the exhibit as a "…full circle… omprisingwhere I come from, what I was interested in, and what was possible to do in China."

Awards and achievements

Liu has received numerous awards, including two painting fellowships from the

National Endowment for the Arts The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal ...

and a Joan Mitchell Fellowship. In 2011 she received an SGC International Award for Lifetime Achievement in Printmaking from the Southern Graphics Council. Other awards include a Society for the Encouragement of Contemporary Art (SECA) award and a Eureka Fellowship. She was the Professor Emerita of Painting at

Mills College Mills College at Northeastern University is a private college in Oakland, California and part of Northeastern University's global university system. Mills College was founded as the Young Ladies Seminary in 1852 in Benicia, California; it was ...

Oakland, California Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast of the United States, West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third ...

, where she taught from 1990 until retiring in 2014.

Death

Liu died from

pancreatic cancer Pancreatic cancer arises when cell (biology), cells in the pancreas, a glandular organ behind the stomach, begin to multiply out of control and form a Neoplasm, mass. These cancerous cells have the malignant, ability to invade other parts of t ...

on 7 August 2021 in Oakland, California. At the time of her passing, the

de Young Museum The de Young Museum, formally the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum, is a fine arts museum located in San Francisco, California. Located in Golden Gate Park, it is a component of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, along with the Legion of Honor ...

in San Francisco had a collection of her work on exhibit. The exhibition will run until 7 August 2022. Liu was in the process of developing an exhibition at the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery before her death. Hung Liu: Portraits of Promised Lands opened in August 27, 2021 and closed on May 30, 2022.

Collections

Liu's work is held in the following public collections: *

National Museum of Women in the Arts The National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA), located in Washington, D.C., is "the first museum in the world solely dedicated" to championing women through the arts. NMWA was incorporated in 1981 by Wallace and Wilhelmina Holladay. Since openin ...

, Washington, DC *

, San Francisco, California *

Whitney Museum of American Art The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–1942), ...

, New York City, New York *

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

, New York City, New York *

National Gallery of Art The National Gallery of Art, and its attached Sculpture Garden, is a national art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of char ...

, Washington, D.C. * Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, California *

Los Angeles County Museum of Art The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is an art museum located on Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile, Los Angeles, California, Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles. LACMA is on Museum Row, adjacent to the La Brea Tar Pits (George C. Pa ...

, Los Angeles, California *

San Jose Museum of Art The San José Museum of Art (SJMA) is a modern and contemporary art museum in downtown San Jose, downtown San Jose, California, United States. Founded in 1969, the museum holds a permanent collection with an emphasis on West Coast of the United Sta ...

, San Jose, California * University of Oregon Museum of Art, Eugene, Oregon *

Muscarelle Museum of Art The Muscarelle Museum of Art is a university museum affiliated with the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. While the Museum only dates to 1983, the university art collection has been in existence since its first gift – a portr ...

, Williamsburg, Virginia

Exhibitions

The Grace Museum January 2020 05 (Hung Liu- The Long Way Home)

Liu's work has appeared in exhibitions and venues including the following: * ''Portraiture Exhibition'', Winter Palace Gallery, Beijing, China; 1978 * ''National Fine Arts Colleges Exhibition'', a traveling group show in China; 1980 * ''Two Lovers 两个爱人''; 1980'''' * ''The Music of the Great Earth 神州律吕行'', Mural Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing; 1981'''' * ''Resident Alien 常住的外来者'',

, CA; 1988'''' * ''Chinese Pieta'' (mixed-media installation), The Women's Building, Los Angeles, CA; 1989 * ''Goddesses of Love and Liberty'', Nahan Contemporary Gallery, New York, NY; 1989 * ''Precarious Links: Emily Jennings, Hung Liu, and Celia Munoz'',

San Antonio Museum of Art The San Antonio Museum of Art (SAMA) is an art museum in Downtown San Antonio, Texas, USA. The museum spans 5,000 years of global culture. The museum is housed in the historic former Lone Star Brewery (1886) on the Museum Reach of the San Antonio ...

, San Antonio, TX and Lawndale Art and Performance Center, Houston TX; 1990 * ''Decoding Gender'',

School 33 Art Center School 33 Art Center is an art gallery and studios in Downtown Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1979, it is located in a former elementary school and is run by the Baltimore Office of Promotion & The Arts. It has been considered a major non-profit ...

, Baltimore, MD; 1992 (curated by Robert Atkins) * ''43rd Biennial of Contemporary American Painting'',

Corcoran Gallery of Art The Corcoran Gallery of Art was an art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, that is now the location of the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design, a part of the George Washington University. Overview The Corcoran School of the Arts & Design ...

, Washington, DC; 1993 * ''In Transit'',

New Museum The New Museum of Contemporary Art, founded in 1977 by Marcia Tucker, is a museum in New York City at 235 Bowery, on Manhattan's Lower East Side. History The museum originally opened in a space in the Graduate Center of the then-named New Sc ...

, New York, NY; 1993 * ''Year of the Dog'', Steinbaum Krauss Gallery, New York, NY; 1994 * ''See-Saw 跷跷板''; 1994'''' * ''Twelve Bay Area Painters: The Eureka Fellowship Winners'', San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose, CA; 1994 * ''The Last Dynasty'', Steinbaum Krauss Gallery, New York, NY; 1995 * ''Parameters: Hung Liu'',

Chrysler Museum of Art The Chrysler Museum of Art is an art museum on the border between downtown and the Ghent district of Norfolk, Virginia. The museum was founded in 1933 as the Norfolk Museum of Arts and Sciences. In 1971, automotive heir, Walter P. Chrysler Jr. ...

, Norfolk, VA; 1995-1996 * ''Gender Beyond Memory'',

Tokyo Photographic Art Museum The is an art museum concentrating on photography. As the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, it was founded by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, and is in Meguro-ku, a short walk from Ebisu station in southwest Tokyo. The museum also ...

, Tokyo, Japan; 1996 * ''American Kaleidoscope: Art At The Close Of This Century'',

Smithsonian American Art Museum The Smithsonian American Art Museum (commonly known as SAAM, and formerly the National Museum of American Art) is a museum in Washington, D.C., part of the Smithsonian Institution. Together with its branch museum, the Renwick Gallery, SAAM holds o ...

, Washington, DC; 1996 * ''American Stories: Amidst Displacement and Transformation'', various venues in Japan (traveling) 1997-1998 including Setagaya Art Museum, Tokyo; Chiba City Museum, Chiba; Fukui Fine Arts Museum, Fukui; Kurashiki Art City Museum, Kurashiki; Atorion, Akita * ''Hung Liu: A Ten-Year Survey, 1988-1998,'' College of Wooster Art Museum, Wooster, Ohio (March–June 1998);

, Williamsburg, Virginia (August–October 1998);

Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art opened in 1994 in Kansas City, Missouri. With a $5 million annual budget and approximately 75,000 visitors each year, it is Missouri's first and largest contemporary museum. Founders The core of the museum's perm ...

, Kansas City, Missouri (November–December 1998);

, La Jolla, California (January–March 1999); Bowdin College Museum of Art, Brunswick, Maine (April–June 1999); and

Ackland Art Museum The Ackland Art Museum is a museum and academic unit of The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It was founded through the bequest of William Hayes Ackland (1855–1940) to The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It is located a ...

, Chapel Hill, North Carolina (September–November 1999). * ''New Work: Painting Today, Recent Acquisitions'', San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA; 1999-2000 * ''Where is Mao? 2000'', The Art Center, Center of Academic Resources, Chulalongkom University, Bangkok, Thailand; 2000 * ''Text and Subtext: Contemporary Art and Asian Women'', various venues (traveling) 2000-2003 including Earl Lu Gallery, La Salle-Sia College of the Arts, Singapore; Ivan Dougherty Gallery, University of New South Wales, Sydney Australia; Artspace, Sydney, Australia; Museum of Far East Antiquities, Stockholm, Sweden; Stenersen Museum, Stockholm, Sweden; Nikolaj Copenhagen Contemporary Art Centre, Copenhagen, Denmark; Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taipei, Taiwan; X-Ray Art Centre, Beijing, China * ''Art/Women/California: Parallels and Intersections'', 1950-2000, San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose, CA; 2002 * ''Strange Fruit: New Paintings by Hung Liu,''

Arizona State University Art Museum The Arizona State University Art Museum is an art museum operated by Arizona State University, located on its main campus in Tempe, Arizona. The Art Museum has some 12,000 objects in its permanent collection and describes its primary focuses as c ...

, Tempe, Arizona (26 January – 28 April 2002);

Boise Art Museum The Boise Art Museum (BAM) is located at 670 Julia Davis Drive in Boise, Idaho, and is part of a series of public museums and cultural attractions in Julia Davis Park. It is the permanent home of a growing collection of contemporary realism, moder ...

, Boise, Idaho (1 June – 4 August 2002);

Laguna Art Museum The Laguna Art Museum (LAM) is a museum located in Laguna Beach, California, on Pacific Coast Highway. LAM exclusively features California art and is the oldest cultural institution in the area. It has been known as the Laguna Beach Art Associati ...

, Laguna Beach, California (27 October – 23 February 2003); and

Crocker Art Museum The Crocker Art Museum is the oldest art museum in the Western United States, located in Sacramento, California. Founded in 1885, the museum holds one of the premier collections of Californian art. The collection includes American works dating f ...

, Sacramento, California (8 March – 4 May 2003). * ''Hung Liu: Toward Peng-Lai (Paradise)'', Rena Bransten Gallery, San Francisco, CA; 2003 * ''Visual Politics: the Art of Engagement'', San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose, CA; 2005-2006 * ''Re-presenting the Chinese in the American West''; University of Wyoming Museum of Art, Laramie, WY; 2006 * ''Daughters of China'', Rena Bransten Gallery, San Francisco, CA; 2007 * ''Tai Cang (Great Granary)'', Xin Beijing Art Gallery (XBAG), Beijing, China; 2008 * ''Prodigal Daughter'', F2 Gallery, Beijing, China; 2008 * ''Richter Scale 里氏震级,'' Bernice Steinbaum Gallery, New York, NY''; 2009'' * ''Qi Bu (Seven Steps to Heaven) 七步(七步上天堂),'' Rena Bransten Gallery, San Francisco, CA; 2009 * ''Half-Life of a Dream: Contemporary Chinese Art from the Logan Collection'',

, San Francisco, CA; 2008 * ''First Spring Thunder'', Alexander Ochs Gallery, Beijing, China; 2011 * ''Culture Revolution: Contemporary Chinese Paintings from the

Allen Memorial Art Museum The Allen Memorial Art Museum (AMAM) is an art museum located in Oberlin, Ohio, and it is run by Oberlin College. Founded in 1917, the collection contains over 15,000 works of art. Overview The AMAM is primarily a teaching museum and is aimed at ...

'', Akron Art Museum, Akron, OH; 2011 * ''SGC International Award Exhibition'',

Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts The Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts is a part of Washington University in St. Louis. The Sam Fox School was founded in 2006 by uniting the academic units of Architecture and Art with the University's Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum to create ...

Washington University in St. Louis Washington University in St. Louis (WashU or WUSTL) is a private research university with its main campus in St. Louis County, and Clayton, Missouri. Founded in 1853, the university is named after George Washington. Washington University is r ...

, MO; 2011 * ''CYCLE 輪回: New Works by Hung Liu'', di Rosa Art Preserve, Napa, CA; 2012 * ''Happy and Gay'', Rena Bransten Gallery, San Francisco, CA; 2012 * ''Gold'', Belvedere Museum, Vienna, Austria; 2012 * ''The Female Gaze: Women Artists Making Their World'',

Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) is a museum and private art school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. * ''Qianshan: Grandfather's Mountain'', Nancy Hoffman Gallery, New York, NY; 2013 * ''Summoning Ghosts,'' Oakland Museum of California on 16 March 2013; then travelled to

, October 2014 and toured, finishing its tour at

Palm Springs Art Museum The Palm Springs Art Museum (formerly the Palm Springs Desert Museum) was founded in 1938, and is a regional art, natural science and performing arts institution for Palm Springs and the Coachella Valley, in Riverside County, California, United St ...

. * ''The Rat Years'', Huntington Museum of Art, Huntington, WV; 2014 * ''Marks Made: Prints by American Women Artists from the 1960s to the Present'', Museum of Fine Arts, St Petersburg, Florida; 2015 * ''Hung Liu: Daughter of China, Resident Alien''; American University Museum at the Katzen Art Center, Washington, D.C.; 2016 (curated by

Peter Selz Peter Howard Selz (March 27, 1919 – June 21, 2019) was a German-born American art historian and museum director and curator who specialized in German Expressionism. Biography Peter Selz was born in Munich of Jewish parents. In 1936, aged 17, h ...

) * ''American Exodus'', Nancy Hoffman Gallery, New York, NY; 2016 * ''Hung Liu: Scales of History'', Fresno Art Museum, Fresno, CA; 2016-2017 * ''Unthinkable Tenderness'',

Walter Maciel Gallery Walter Maciel Gallery is an art gallery founded in 2005, located at 2642 S. La Cienega Boulevard, in the Culver City Arts District in Los Angeles, California, United States. Walter Maciel worked as a gallery director in San Francisco for fourteen ...

, Los Angeles, CA; 2018 * ''Promised Land'', Rena Bransten Gallery, San Francisco, CA; 2017 * ''Women with Vision'',

, Williamsburg, VA; 2018 *''Hung Liu: Portraits of Promised Lands'', National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C., 2021 * ''Remember This: Hung Liu at Trillium'', University of Oregon Museum of Art, Eugene, OR; 2022

Publications

* Sui, Jianguo et al. ''Hung Liu: Great Granary''. Blue Kingfisher, 2011 * Roth, David; "Hung Liu @ Oakland Museum." ''Square Cylinder'', 18 April 2013 * Liu, Hung. ''Questions from the Sky''. Hardy Marks Publications, 2015 * Kelley, Jeff et al. ''Daughter of China, Resident Alien''. American University Museum at the Katzen Art Center, Washington, D.C. 2016 * Hickey, Dave; ''25 Women: Essays on Their Work''. University of Chicago Press, 2016 * Gouma-Peterson, Thalia et al. ''Hung Liu: A Ten-Year Survey 1988-1998''. College of Wooster Art Museum, Wooster, MA, 1998 * de Guzman, Rene et al. ''Summoning Ghosts: The Art of Hung Liu''. University of California Press, 2013 *Moss, Dorothy et al. "Hung Liu: Portraits of Promised Lands". Yale University Press, Published in association with the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, June 29, 2021

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Liu, Hung 1948 births 2021 deaths 20th-century American painters 20th-century American women artists American artists of Chinese descent American women painters Artists from the San Francisco Bay Area People's Republic of China emigrants to the United States American contemporary painters Mills College faculty University of California, San Diego alumni 21st-century American women artists American women academics Deaths from cancer in California Deaths from pancreatic cancer