Outside of China, there are only four significant collections of Chinese woodcut prints from the wartime period between 1937 and 1948. They are located in Australia, Paris, London — and Colgate’s own Picker Art Gallery.
Colgate’s entire collection, donated by geography professor emeritus and Peace and Conflict Studies Program founder Theodore Herman (1954–1981), is now on display for the first time.
The exhibit opened on Sept. 19, and it displays more than 200 woodcut pieces that depict the historical conflicts and social movements leading to the founding of the People’s Republic of China. “There’s a lot of good historical context, and there’s a lot to learn about that particular moment in Chinese history,” said Nicholas West, curator of the gallery and co-director of University Museums.
Woodcut printing was invented in China and served as an accessible artistic medium, “It’s usually been thought of as a medium for the masses,” West said. “The revival of woodcuts as a medium in Chinese art was specifically responding to that traditional division between ‘high art’ and ‘low art.’”
Herman lived in China with his wife, Evelyn Mary Chen Shiying Herman, from 1936 to 1948. During that time, Herman befriended many woodcut artists, and they gave him pieces to show in the United States after he left China due to the difficult political climate.
“[There was] a lot of anti-communist sentiment then, and it was actually quite dangerous to be associated with China or any of the communist powers,” West said. “So eventually he ended up working here as a geography professor at Colgate. When he was trying to figure out what to do with these prints, he decided to donate them to Picker.”
Leslie Ann Eliet, curator of the exhibit, was working as a director’s secretary and registrar for the Picker Gallery in 1980 when she received the prints and began working on inventorying the collection. As a printmaker herself, Eliet was familiar with the medium and conducted her own research on the collection — she even traveled to China to interview a few of the surviving artists. Years later, Eliet presented the idea of an exhibition.
“I knew that this had never been seen in its entirety in the United States, and I had done a lot of research and kept up with some of the artists,” Eliet said. “I had been working on this for a long time and met with Nick to present him with this idea. And, finally, it came to fruition.”
Outside of the historical aspect of the collection, there’s a lot to be learned from the medium itself. “These images are really accessible,” West said. “You’re going to come into the exhibition and understand what’s going on with these images. They are expressive, they are emotive, and they are really quite narrative.”