Remember Hung Liu
Once upon a time, before Jet Blue moved to a modernized, sleek terminal named after the assassinated San Francisco supervisor Harvey Milk, there was a spectacular painting by Hung Liu displayed in the international section at SFO. I would admire the piece as I sprinted to gate 11 for early morning flights to New York. My familiarity with the work helped me recognize her when I came across additional artwork at SFMOMA, the Whitney Museum, and the Oakland Museum of California.
Born in Changchun, China, in 1948, Liu passed away in August of pancreatic cancer. As one of the first Chinese artists to establish a career in the West, her paintings were known to reflect Chinese historical photographs and featured women, children, refugees, and soldiers – individuals frequently overlooked and unheard. With layered brushstrokes that combined washes of linseed oil, her work came to be synonymous with distinct drips marks.
The artist as a graduate student in Beijing.
After her father was thrown in prison for being a member of the Kuomintang Nationalist Party of China, 10-year-old Liu went to live with her aunt in Beijing. There, she attended the Beijing Teachers College in 1975, and then went on to study mural painting as a graduate student at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing. Hung Liu immigrated to the United States in 1984 and entered the MFA program at the University of California, San Diego. The groundbreaking artist went on to join the faculty at Oakland’s Mills College in 1990 and continued to live in the Bay Area until her death at the age of 73.
Before her untimely passing, Liu was working with the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery curator Dorothy Moss. The task involved selecting 50 works out of the thousands of pieces created by the prolific artist in her lifetime. What came together is Hung Liu: Portraits of Promised Land, the retrospective that will be on display at the Washington, DC institution through May 30, 2022. This will be the first major exhibition of Liu’s work on the East Coast and the first time the National Portrait Gallery will focus on her portraiture.
Refugees: Woman and Children.
Hung Liu. Courtesy of the Oakland Museum of California.
If you are not familiar with Hung Liu’s work, I highly recommend giving yourself the gift of looking her up. Bay Area residents can find a newly-organized installation at the Oakland Museum of California, running through October 31, 2021. The show features four of Liu’s works in the Gallery of California Art. It offers a quiet setting for visitors to enjoy and appreciate her work, as well as an opportunity to contribute memories of Liu. East Coast art lovers can see the National Portrait Gallery’s exhibition through May 2022.
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