Ink Society at Ink Asia 2023: Stories from the Chinese painting collection at the British Museum: A Curator’s perspective
Dr Luk Yu-ping 陸於平, Basil Gray Curator: Chinese Paintings, Prints and Central Asian Collections, British Museum
Dr Luk Yu-ping presented three paintings from the Chinese painting collection at the British Museum: Tribute Horse and Camel, a tenth-century sketch from the Library Cave, Dunhuang, Portrait of an Official in Front of the Forbidden City by the Ming painter Zhu Bang, and Paradise for Small Birds by Wu Guanzhong from the twentieth century. Through these very different paintings, Yu-ping reflected on the different aspects of museum work that have shaped the Chinese painting collection: acquisitions, conservation, research, as well as gallery displays and temporary exhibitions.
Dr Luk Yu-Ping is the Basil Gray Curator: Chinese Paintings, Prints and Central Asian Collections at the British Museum. Previously, she was a curator at the V&A, project curator of the British Museum exhibition Ming: 50 Years that Changed China, and assistant professor at Lingnan University, Hong Kong. She received her DPhil at the University of Oxford. Her publications have mainly focused on empresses in Ming and Qing China. She is currently working on a Silk Roads exhibition planned for 2024-5.