Page 10 - China's Renaissance in Bronze, The Robert H.CIague Collection of Later Chinese Bronzes 1100-1900

Preface

ORE THAN EIGHT HUNDRED Y E A R S A G O , Chinese artisans set in
motion a revival of bronze casting that would last until the twen-
M tieth century. Emulating the exquisitely cast ritual vessels from
China's great Bronze Age, which began around 1600 BC, these artisans
created superb works that echo the shapes and motifs of antiquity but
infuse into them new patterns, new functions, and even new meanings. We
are grateful to the Northern Trust Bank of Arizona for its support which
enables the Phoenix Art Museum to explore this rekindling of the bronze
tradition in the exhibition China's Renaissance in Bronze: The Robert H.
Clague Collection of Later Chinese Bronzes, 1100-1900.
Within the past fifteen years, Robert H. Clague has become interna-
tionally known for his collecting of Chinese art. In 1980, the Phoenix Art
Museum organized Chinese Cloisonne: The Robert H. Clague Collection, the
Museum's first travelling exhibition of Asian art. That exhibition coincided
with the founding of the Museum's Asian department and the appointment
of its first curator of Asian art, Claudia Brown, who wrote the catalog for the
exhibition. Chinese Cloisonne later travelled to fourteen museums in the
United States and Asia. That collection of cloisonne enamels from the Ming
(1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties is now a part of the Museum's per-
manent collection. In subsequent years, Robert Clague and his wife Amy
were instrumental in founding the museum's Asian Arts Council, which has
supported programs in Asian art, one of the museum's major areas of
emphasis. In 1987, the Phoenix Art Museum organized Chinese Glass of the
Qing Dynasty: The Robert H. Clague Collection, its catalog co-authored
by Claudia Brown and Donald Rabiner, who was professor of art history at
Arizona State University until his death in 1992. Chinese Glass opened in
Phoenix and then travelled to Milwaukee, San Antonio and Tokyo; the col-
lection is now permanently in the Hong Kong Museum of Art. The Clague
collection of bronzes now offers an opportunity to investigate the intri-
cacies of the bronze caster's art in a superb group of works dating from the
Song (960-1279) through the late Qing dynasty.