Aida Yuen Wong

Nathan Cummings and Robert B. and Beatrice C. Mayer Chair in Fine Arts, and Professor of Fine Arts, and East Asian Studies

Departments/Programs

Comparative Humanities
East Asian Studies
Fine Arts
German, Russian, and Asian Languages and Literature

Degrees

Columbia University, Ph.D.
Columbia University, M.Phil.
Columbia University, M.A.
University of Western Ontario, B.A.

Expertise

Chinese and Asian Art; Transculturalism; Painting, Calligraphy, Seal Carving, and Fashion History

Profile

Aida Yuen Wong is a scholar of Asian art history who has written extensively on transcultural modernism. Among her major publications are Parting the Mists: Discovering Japan and the Rise of National-Style Painting in Modern China (University of Hawai‘i Press, 2006) (Chinese Translation from Taipei: Rock Publishing, 2019) and the edited volume Visualizing Beauty: Gender and Ideology in Modern East Asia (Hong Kong University Press, 2012). She is the author of the chapter on Chinese modernism in the Oxford Encyclopedia of Aesthetics, 2nd ed. (2014). Another book, The Other Kang Youwei: Calligrapher, Art Activist, and Aesthetic Reformer in Modern China (Brill, 2016), explores the art theory and legacy of the late Qing-early Republican reformer whose paradigmatic thinking about painting and calligraphy cast a long shadow on modern/contemporary Chinese art discourses. She is the co-editor of the volume, Fashion, Identity, and Power in Modern Asia (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), which deals with dress reforms in China, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Korea between the late nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries. In addition, she has begun research on 20th-century ink painting in Taiwan that intersects with gouache and oil painting. Her areas of interest include painting, calligraphy, institutional history, and historiography. Webpage

Courses Taught

FA	34a	History of Asian Art
FA	71b	The Art of Japan
FA	170a	Arts of the Ming Dynasty
FA	172b	Ink Painting in Taiwan
FA	173b	Art in Shanghai
FA	176a	Fashion History of China
FA	178b	Seminar on Chinese Calligraphy and Practice
FA	197a	Studies in Asian Art

Awards and Honors

Mandel Faculty Grant in the Humanities (2019)

Theodore and Jane Norman Fund for Faculty Research and Creative Projects (2018 - 2020)

“Analogy and the Structures of Art History in the Global Era,” Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Grant, in collaboration with the University of Toronto (2018 - 2023)

Experiential Learning and Teaching Grant (2017)

Brandeis Arts Council Grant (2016 - 2019)

Brandeis University Provost's Research Fund (2016 - 2017)

Chair of the Department of Fine Arts (2016 - 2019)

Theodore and Jane Norman Fund for Faculty Research and Creative Projects (2016 - 2018)

Area Editor (China, from 1400), Grove Encyclopedia of Asian Art and Architecture (2015 - 2019)

Nathan Cummings and Robert B. and Beatrice C. Mayer Endowed Chair in Fine Arts (2015)

Taiwan Fellowship (2015 - 2016)

Theodore and Jane Norman Fund for Faculty Research and Creative Projects (2014 - 2015)

Associate Editor for East Asia, Modern Art Asia (2013 - 2015)

Field Editor for Chinese Books, CAA.REVIEWS (2013 - 2014)

American Council of Learned Societies (and NEH) American Research in the Humanities in China Fellowship (2012 - 2013)

Field Editor for Chinese and Korean Books, CAA.REVIEWS (2012)

Theodore and Jane Norman Fund for Faculty Research and Creative Projects (2009 - 2011)

Chair of the East Asian Studies Program (2008 - 2014)

American Council of Learned Societies (and NEH) American Research in the Humanities in China Fellowship (2002 - 2003)

University of Chicago Postdoctoral Fellowship (1999)

C.V. Starr Award in East Asian Art History (1995 - 1996)

Japan Foundation Dissertation Fellowship (1994 - 1995)

Burke-Griggs Summer Grant (1993)

Columbia University Weatherhead Fellowship in Art History (1993 - 1994)

Columbia University President’s Fellowship (92-94, 97-99) (1992 - 1999)

University of Western Ontario Gold Medal for First-Place Ranking in Visual Arts and French, Graduating Class '91 (1991)

Scholarship

Wong, Aida Yuen. "Gao Jianfu's Aesthetic of Dilapidation: Modern Chinese Visuality and Its Relations to Japan and the Stele School." Japanese Art -- Transcultural Perspectives. Ed. Guth, Christine, Melanie Trede, and Mio Wakita. Leiden: Brill/Hotei, 2021 (forthcoming)

Wong, Aida Yuen. "Kang Youwei." Grove Encyclopedia of Asian Art and Architecture. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021. 163-98.

Wong, Aida Yuen. "Review of Chinese Ways of Seeing and Open-Air Painting." by Yi Gu. Chinese Review International vol. 26.4 (2021)

Wong, Aida Yuen. "Review of Rachel Silberstein’s A Fashionable Century: Textile Artistry and Commerce in the Late Qing." Nan Nu: Men, Women and Gender in China 23. 1 (2021): 163-98.

阮圓 (Wong, Aida Yuen). "Shufajia Xiao Xian (1902-1997): Huozai nanren shijie de nüren 書法家蕭嫻 (1902-1997)：活在男人世界的女人 (Calligrapher Xiao Xian: A Woman in a Man’s World)." Kanjian yu chupeng xingbie: Jinxiandai Zhongguo yishushi xin shiye 看見與觸碰性別：近現代中國藝術史新視野 (Seeing and Touching Gender: New Perspectives on Modern Chinese Art). Ed. Ko, Dorothy, Lai Yu-chih, and Aida Yuen Wong. Taipei: Rock Publishing, 2020. 248-259.

高彥頤 (Ko, Dorothy), 賴毓芝 (Lai Yu-chih), and 阮圓 (Aida Yuen Wong/Ruan Yuan), eds. Kanjian yu chupeng xingbie: Jinxiandai Zhongguo yishushi xin shiye 看見與觸碰性別：近現代中國藝術史新視野 (Seeing and Touching Gender: New Perspectives on Modern Chinese Art). Taipei: Rock Publishing, 2020.

Ruan Yuan 阮圓 (Wong, Aida Yuen). 撥迷開霧：日本與中國「國畫」的誕生 (Chinese Translation of Parting the Mists: Discovering Japan and the Rise of National-style Painting in Modern China). 台北 Taipei: Rock Publishing, 2019.

Wong, Aida Yuen 阮圓. "Multiple Affinities: Eddy Chan Kwan-lap and Ink Painting in Hong Kong 水墨造境：陳君立與香港現代水墨畫." Truth of Life: Contemporary Chinese Ink Painting by Eddy K. L. Chan, exh. cat. Hong Kong: Eddy Chan Studio, 2019. 10-15.

Wong, Aida Yuen. "Chinese Seal Carving in Modern Japan: Qian Shoutie's Relationship with Hashimoto Kansetsu." East Asian Art History in a Transnational Context. Ed. Eriko Tomizawa-Kay and Toshio Watanabe. Abington: Routledge, 2019. 169-87.

Wong, Aida Yuen. "Enriching Steles: Lee Chun-yi’s Renewal of an Ancient Aesthetic 豐碑：李君毅的古代美學復興." Enriching Steles: Ink Art by Lee Chun-yi 豐碑：李君毅的水墨藝術. Hong Kong: Alisan Fine Arts, 2019. 13-29.

Wong, Aida Yuen. "Ink Painting in the Sinophone World: Liu Guosong's Hong Kong Period." Art in Translation 11. 1 (2019): 22-44.

Ruan Yuan 阮圆 （Wong, Aida Yuen). "Taiwan shuimohua: Lin Yu-shan zhi Zhong-Ri zhezhong” 台湾水墨画：林玉山之中日折衷 (Taiwanese ink painting: Lin Yu-shan’s Sino-Japanese syncretism)." Jielu Fusang: liuRi huajia de Zhongguohua gailiang 借路扶桑：留日画家的中国画改良，1905–1937 (Passing Through Japan: Reforming Painting by Chinese Artists who Studied in Japan, 1905-1937). Ed. He Xiangning Meishuguan. Guangzhou: Lingnan Meishu Chubanshe, 2018. 180-193.

Wong, Aida Yuen and Kyunghee Pyun, eds. Fashion, Identity, and Power in Modern Asia. London and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018.

Wong, Aida Yuen. "Exhibition Review: 'Boundless Peaks: Ink Painting by Minol Araki (1928-2010)'." Orientations 49. 2 May/June (2018): 120-23.

Wong, Aida Yuen. "Monarchist Ambition in China’s New Republic: Illustrated Manual of Dress for Ritual Sacrifice for Yuan Shikai’s Presidency." Fashion, Identity, and Power in Modern Asia. Ed. Pyun, Kyunghee and Aida Yuen Wong. London and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018. 69-89.

阮圆 Wong, Aida Yuen. "Shuimo de yitu: lun Yuan Chin-taa ji Taiwan de dongmai” 水墨的意图：论袁金塔及台湾的动脉 [Intentionality of Ink: On Yuan Chin-taa and Taiwan’s Artery]." Yuan Chin-taa You Shouzhong zuopin xueshu yantaohui 袁金塔游守中作品学术研讨会. [Conference Proceedings of the Exhibition of Works by Yuan Chin-taa and You Shouzhong], Shangdong Meishuguan. Ed. Jiang Meixiang 江梅香. Taoyuan: Chan Liu Art Museum, 2018. 25-31.

Wong, Aida Yuen 阮圓. "Lee Chung-chung: Preserver of Taiwan's Modernism 李重重：台灣現代主義的守護者." Lee Chung-chung: Poetic Universe, exh. cat.. Taipei: Liang Gallery 尊彩藝術中心, 2017. 7-14 (In English and Chinese).

Wong, Aida Yuen. "Interview with the Artist." Shih Chieh Huang: Reusable Universes. Ed. Worcester Art Museum. New York: Inventory Press, 2017. 56-60.

Wong, Aida Yuen. "Review of Qing Encounters: Exchanges between China and West, edited by Petra Ten-Doesschate Chu and Ning Ding." Burlington Magazine 159. October 2017 (2017): 826.

Wong, Aida Yuen. "Yuan Chin-taa’s Nativism and Philosophy of Life." Yuan Chin-taa: Livres d’Artiste et Installations de Papier, Catalogue Édité Pour Accompagner L’Exposition Rétrospective des Oeuvres de Yuan Chin-Taa en 2017 (Lodève –Paris – Volvic). Ed. Christophe Comentale. Taoyuan: Chan Liu Art Museum, 2017. 68-87.

阮圓 (Wong, Aida Yuen). "高剑父书画的残破美与碑学的关系 (Relationship between Gao Jianfu’s aesthetic of dilapidation in painting and calligraphy and the Stele School)." 国画复活运动与广东中国画: 国际学术研讨会论文集 (Guangdong Chinese painting in the resurrection movement of Chinese painting: international scholarship seminar thesis anthology). vol. 2 Ed. Chen Ruilin 陈瑞林 and Wei Chenghong 韦承红. Guangzhou: Lingnan Meishu Chubanshe, 2017. 356–68..

Wong, Aida Yuen. "Rabindranath Tagore's Mysterious Faces and India's Encounter with Modernism." Behind the Masks of Modernism: Global and Transnational Perspectives. Ed. Andy Reynolds and Bonnie Roos. Gainesville: The University Press of Florida, 2016. 24-54.

Wong, Aida Yuen. "Review of Roberta Wue, Art Worlds: Artists, Images, and Audiences in late Nineteenth-Century Shanghai." The Art Bulletin June (2016): 263-65.

Wong, Aida Yuen. The Other Kang Youwei: Calligrapher, Art Activist, and Aesthetic Reformer in Modern China. Leiden, Boston, Tokyo: Brill, 2016.

Ruan Yuan (Wong, Aida Yuen). "Kang Youwei yu Shanghai meishu jiaoyu (Kang Youwei and Shanghai Art Education)." Proceedings of the Conference on the Centenary of the Founding of the Shanghai School of Fine Arts. Ed. Liu Haisu Museum. Shanghai: Liu Haisu Museum, 2015

Wong, Aida Yuen. "Kingfisher Blue in Ming Arts: Status Symbol, Material Invention, and Intercultural Connections." Colour Histories: Science, Art, and Technology in the 17th and 18th Centuries. Ed. Magdalena Bushart and Friedrich Steinle. Berlin: De Gruyter Verlag, 2015. 145-57; 382-91.

Wong, Aida Yuen. "Le Japon et l’école de Lingnan : une énigme de la Modernité." L’école de Lingnan: L’éveil de la Chine moderne. exh. cat. Paris: Musée Cernuschi, 2015. 86-91.

Wong, Aida Yuen. "Review of Rosina Buckland, Painting Nature for the Nation: Taki Katei and the Challenges to Sinophile Culture in Meiji Japan." Monumenta Nipponica 70. 2 (2015).

Wong, Aida Yuen. "Modernism: China." Encyclopedia of Aesthetics. 2 ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. 387-91.

Ruan Yuan [Wong, Aida Yuen]. "Mr. Ma Guoquan: Scholar-Calligrapher Par Excellence." Wanhua Tang fuzi shuhua hebi—Ma Guoquan Ma Dawei shuhua zhuanke yishuji (Father-and-son joint exhibition of painting and calligraphy from the Hall of the Evening Blossoms—Collection of Calligraphy, Painting, and Calligraphy by Ma Guoquan and Ma Dawei). exh. cat. Shenzhen: Haitian Chubanshe, 2013. 200-203.

Wong, Aida Yuen [Ruan Yuan]. "Art has a Human Face." Bonds of Memory: Wan Qingli’s Collection of Chinese Art Given by His Teachers and Friends. exh. cat. Hong Kong: Hong Kong Museum of Art, 2013. 16-37 (In English and Chinese).

Wong, Aida Yuen. "Reforming Calligraphy in Modern Japan: The Six Dynasties School and Nakamura Fusetsu’s Chinese ‘Stele’ Style." The Role of Japan in Modern Chinese Art. Ed. Joshua A.Fogel. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2013. 131-153.

Wong, Aida Yuen, ed. Visualizing Beauty: Gender and Ideology in Modern East Asia. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2012.

Wong, Aida Yuen. "Art of Non-Resistance: Elitism, Fascist Aesthetics, and the Taiwanese Painter Lin Chih-chu." Art and War in Japan and its Empire: 1930-1960. Ed. Asato Ikeda, Ming Tiampo, and Louisa McDonald. Leiden: Brill, 2012. 305-323.

Wong, Aida Yuen. "Landscapes of Empowerment: Fu Baoshi's Reappropriation of the 'Chinese' Rainscape Tradition from Japan." Journal of the History of Modern Art (In English with Korean Translation). December, no. 32 (2012): 175-219.

Wong, Aida Yuen, co-authored with Tamaki Maeda. "Kindred Spirits: Fu Baoshi and the Japanese Art World." Chinese Art in the Age of Revolution: Fu Baoshi (1904-1965). Ed. Anita Chung, exh. cat. Cleveland Museum of Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2011. 35-41.

Wong, Aida Yuen. "Kishida Ryusei: Painter of the 'Oriental Grotesque' and the Mingei Movement." The 38th International Research Symposium: Questioning Oriental Aesthetics and Thinking: Conflicting Visions of "Asia" under the Colonial Empires. Ed. Inaga Shigemi. Kyoto: International Research Center for Japanese Studies, 2011. 185-96.

Ruan Yuan (Wong, Aida Yuen) and Pu Leeann trans.. "Jindai Riben shufa gexin: lun Liuchaopai ji Zhongcun Buzhe de Zhongguoshi beixuefeng” (Reforming Calligraphy in Modern Japan: The Six Dynasties School and Nakamura Fusetsu’s Chinese-influenced “Stele” Style)." Tsing-hua hsueh-pao (Tsing-hua Journal of Chinese Studies) September. (2010): 485-511 (in Chinese).

Wong, Aida Yuen, Iriye Akira and Pierre-Yves Saunier. "Zen Aesthetics." Palgrave Dictionary of Transnational History. 2009.

Wong, Aida Yuen. "What is a `Masterpiece? Historiographical Anxieties and Classifications of Chinese Painting in the Modern Period." Writing Modern Chinese Art: Historiographical Explorations. Ed. Josh Yiu. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2009. 95-105.

Wong, Aida Yuen. "A Chinese Seal Carver in Japan: Qian Shoutie and the Literati World of Hashimoto Kansetsu." Turmoil, Representation and Trends: Modern Chinese Painting, 1796-1949. Taipei: Chang Foundation, 2008

Wong, Aida Yuen. "Kawachi Kunpei: Calligrapher, Teacher, Painter." Brush and Ink: Kawachi Kunpei, exh,. cat., University of Puget Sound. Tokyo: Hakuteisha, 2008. 7-12 (in English and Japanese).

Wong, Aida Yuen. Tang Dynasty Poem (calligraphy). 2008. Kawachi Kunpei avec Ses Élèves, Galerie Satellite, Paris Exhibition.

Wong, Aida Yuen. "Landscapes by Nandlal Bose (1882-1966): Japanism and Populism in Modern India." Shadows of the Past: Of Okakura Tenshin and Pan-Asianism. Ed. Brij Tankha. Calcutta: Sampark, 2007. 107-124.

Wong, Aida Yuen. "Naito Konan's History of Chinese Painting." Crossing the Yellow Sea: Sino-Japanese Cultural Contacts, 1600-1950. Ed. Joshua Fogel. Connecticut: EastBridge, 2007. 281-304.

Wong, Aida Yuen. Parting the Mists: Discovering Japan and the Rise of National-Style Painting in Modern China. University of Hawai'i Press, 2006.

Wong, Aida Yuen. "Okakura Kakuzo: Aesthetic of Pan-Asianism." Sources of Japanese Tradition. 2 ed. vol. II (1600-2000) Ed. Wm. Theodore de Bary, Carol Gluck, and Donald Keene. New York: Columbia University Press, 2005

Wong, Aida Yuen. "Three Films about Food by Fruit Chan: Allegories of Hong Kong-China Relations after 1997." Asian Cinema Winter/Fall. (2005): 229-241.

Wong, Aida Yuen. "Dunhuangology as Nationalist Apparatus: The Kyoto School of Oriental Studies and its Connection with Modern Chinese Historiography." Japanese Cultural Nationalism: At Home and in the Asia Pacific. Ed. Roy Starrs. Kent: Global Oriental, 2004. 252-67.

Wong, Aida Yuen. Timeline China 1800-1900; 1900-2000. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2004.

Wong, Aida Yuen. "Vestiges of Time/Elemental Spring: Zhang Jian-Jun and Barbara Edelstein in Guangdong." Yishu: Contemporary Art 2. 1 (Spring/March) (2003): 95-97.

Ruan Yuan (Wong, Aida Yuen). "Dongyang, minzuzhuyi he Dazheng minzhu: Neiteng Hunan de Zhongguo meishu shi (The East, Nationalism, and Taishō Democracy: Naitō Konan’s History of Chinese Painting)." Meishuguan May (2002): 92-100 (in Chinese).

Wong, Aida Yuen. "Review of Maxwell K. Hearn and Judith G. Smith, eds. Chinese Art: Modern Expressions." CAA.Reviews October (2002): <http://www.caareviews.org/reviews/hearn.html>.

Ruan Yuan (Wong, Aida Yuen). "Ershi shijichu wenrenhua de xinsheng: dongfang yishu yu xiandaixing kua wenhua de xushi (A New Life for Literati Painting in the Early Twentieth Century: Eastern Art and Modernity, a Transnational Narrative)." Sixiang (Thinking) 8 (2001): 92-120 (in Chinese).

Wong, Aida Yuen, Tom and Sara Pendergast, eds.. "Cai Guoqiang." Contemporary Artists. 5 ed. 2 vols. 2001.

Wong, Aida Yuen. "The Ellsworth Collection in the Metropolitan Museum: Premier American Collection of Modern Chinese Painting." Oriental Art 47. 3 (June) (2001): 79-82.

Wong, Aida-Yuen. "A New Life for Literati Painting in the Twentieth Century: Eastern Art and Modernity, A Transcultural Narrative?." Artibus Asiae 60. 2 (2000): 297-326.

Wong, Aida Yuen. "The East, Nationalism, and Taishō Democracy: Naitō Konan’s History of Chinese Painting." Sino-Japanese Studies 11. 2 (1999): 3-23.

Wong, Aida Yuen. "Review of Words and Images: Chinese Poetry, Calligraphy, and Painting by Wen Fong and Alfreda Murck." RACAR vol. 17, no. 2 1992: 193-194.