Asian Art and History

Lecture

Asian Art and History Uli Sigg, M+ China’s First Avant-Garde Art Collection

Clarissa von Spee, Ph.D., Chair of Asian Art and Donna and James Reid Curator of Chinese Art, The Cleveland Museum of Art

Uli Sigg has been a journalist and investor, held executive roles in industry and on international corporate boards and served as a Swiss diplomat, but his work as the premier collector of Chinese contemporary art is why he is celebrated across the world. In this lecture, Clarissa von Spee explores the career of the pioneering collector credited with building China’s first avant-garde art collection, which shaped the canon of Chinese contemporary art. Major parts of his collection have recently been donated and partly sold to the Contemporary Art Museum M+, situated in the West Kowloon Cultural District, Hong Kong.

This presentation is part of the Asian Art and History series.

Clarissa von Spee

Clarissa von Spee

Clarissa von Spee is chair of Asian art and Donna and James Reid Curator of Chinese Art at the Cleveland Museum of Art. She was curator of the Chinese and Central Asian collections at the British Museum from 2008 to 2016, and she taught East Asian art history at Heidelberg University from 2005 to 2008. Von Spee studied in Heidelberg, Paris and Taipei and received her Ph.D. from Heidelberg University.

Von Spee has curated numerous exhibitions, such as The Printed Image in China from the 8th to the 21st Centuries and, most recently, China’s Southern Paradise: Treasures from the Lower Yangzi Delta. Her publications include, Wu Hufan: A Twentieth Century Art Connoisseur in Shanghai and The Perfect Brush: Chinese Painting 1300-1900.