Museum receives precious Chinese art from alumnus

Chicago－In a recent announcement made by the University of Michigan, the school acknowledges a collection of art and endowment with a combined value of around $5 million donated by alumnus William Weese to the UM Museum of Art.

Part of the donation that Weese gave to UMMA are more than 1,000 ceramic and decorative art pieces valued at $3.35 million from China's Neolithic period to the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties, with some pieces dating back to as early as 3,000 BC.

The endowment part of Weese's gift is a $1.7 million William C Weese MD Endowment aimed to "develop, promote and implement programs to further the education, appreciation and understanding of ceramic arts".

"I have been studying and collecting Chinese art and ceramics since the early 1980s－the craftsmanship and history of the works has fascinated me my entire life," Weese says. "My goal in gifting this collection to the University of Michigan is both to preserve it for generations to come, and to help foster that same love and passion for the exploration of technique and history that I've developed over the years. I hope students embrace this love. I hope the community comes out to see it as well."

In a statement posted on its website, the university wrote that having works of art that span such a vast time period will allow the museum not only to just tell about the progression of techniques, trends and tastes in Chinese ceramics, but also how those trends and techniques filtered into the broader, more global ceramic arts scene.

"We are incredibly grateful to the Weese family for their generosity," says Natsu Oyobe, curator of Asian art at UMMA. "I just know that the passion and love they felt for these pieces will continue to live on at UMMA and inspire a new generation of interest and scholarship for ceramics."

Oyobe also says the gift will greatly strengthen UMMA's place as a leader in ceramic arts and continue to build its nationally renowned collection of Asian art.

Select pieces from the Weese collection will be on display at UMMA from as early as this fall.

Xinhua