UC Berkeley, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

2120 Oxford Street
#2250
Berkeley, CA 94720-2250, US
(510) 642-1437
bampfafilmlibrary@berkeley.edu
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The Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive’s distinguished collections are characterized by artistic excellence and innovation, intellectual exploration, and social commentary. With more than 20,000 works of art and 14,000 films and videos, BAMPFA’s collection is one of the largest and most comprehensive of any American university museum.
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Chinese Paintings, 12th century - 20th century

Of the approximately 150 Chinese paintings in this collection guide, the majority were originally collected by UC Berkeley Professor Emeritus James Cahill and the Cahill family. The Cahill family collections, known historically as the Ching Yüan Chai Collection, are arguably among the finest in the western United States, representing virtually every period of Chinese painting over the last 900 years. The collections consist of works from the Sung, Yüan, Ming, and Ch'ing dynasties, including major figure paintings and bird-and-flower paintings. The greatest strength, however, is landscape paintings. Considered the highest category of painting in China, the landscape embodies the ideals of the Confucian scholar. This is the area of Chinese art in which we find the most daring experiments, the greatest developments, and the most intense art historical scrutiny.

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