Renwen Lecture Series: The Legacy of C.C. Wang as a Great Painter and Connoisseur. He is a celebrated collector and connoisseur of Chinese literati paintings of the 20th century, as well as a talented painter himself, spent over sixty years studying Chinese paintings from the Imperial Collection. For about 40 years, while studying the original works, as well as the published images of these paintings, he recorded private notes. His notes reflect the traditional Chinese way of judging paintings, which he learned from his mentors, the eminent collectors and painters, Gu Lingshi and Wu Hufan. Kathleen Yang, a graduate of Harvard University, studied with C.C. for many decades in order to understand the traditional connoisseurship of Chinese literati paintings, a system that has existed in China for many centuries, through which one's knowledge is transmitted to mentors. When C.C. Wang asked her to translate his notes from Chinese into English for publication, she spent three years consulting with him on a weekly basis to ensure the accuracy of the information, particularly the criteria he used in rating the paintings. On April 15, Kathleen Yang will talk about C.C. Wang, the painter and connoisseur, the importance and scope of his collection, and the collectors in Shanghai before the establishment of the New China.
王己千 生於東吳世家，為明代戶部尚書、武英殿大學士王鏊第十四代嫡孫。王己千先生是20世紀中國畫收藏界和鑑賞界的泰斗。國外十多個著名博物館共有160 多件他以前收藏過的畫。他的收藏不僅涵蓋了明、清，而且宋、元的一些名跡幾乎都集中在他手上。在美期間王己千先生曾多次將心愛的珍藏提供給重要博物館。王己千先生也是一個造詣很高的畫家。他不但承繼傳統，筆墨老辣，而且聰慧過人，善於變法。 1947年移居美國後，他呼應國際美術的動態變化，多次對自己的繪畫風格進行調整。在熟練掌握傳統筆墨的基礎上，他大膽地借鑒西畫的諸多繪畫技法，運用於自己的創作之中，使自己的作品華人愛看，西方人也愛看。