Artwork by Hung Liu

Hung Liu

Watch
Artist Interview 'Hung Liu: The Sun Also Rises,' 2020

Artist News

Exhibition

Georgetown University Art Gallery

Hung Liu: Happy & Gay
January 17 – April 13, 2025

Hung Liu: Happy and Gay, curated by Georgetown University Art and Curatorial Studies graduate students in collaboration with Dr. Dorothy Moss, presents a selection of Liu’s works from 2011-2013. In the series, Liu revisits cartoons of her youth that were published in children’s books and primers (known as xiaorenshu). Like the Dick and Jane readers circulating in the United States during the postwar era, the illustrations were used in China to socialize children by instilling values such as hard work, family unity, and patriotism. Liu’s reformulation of this palm-size historic childhood imagery into large-scale, richly-painted contemporary canvases not only turns mass-produced illustrations into paintings but also raises questions at the intersection of ideology, propaganda, and education. Liu invites viewers to think critically about the words and images that shape our collective identities, challenging us to reimagine them, a form of rewriting history. As she often said, “history is a verb. It is constantly flowing forward.”

Hung Liu exhibition catalog cover
Publication

National Portrait Gallery Exhibition Catalog

Hung Liu: Portraits of Promised Lands presents the stunning work of this contemporary Chinese American artist. Liu (b. 1948) blends painting and photography to offer new frameworks for understanding portraiture in relation to time, memory, and history. Often working from photographs, she uses portraiture to elevate overlooked subjects, amplifying the stories of those who have historically been invisible or unheard. This richly illustrated book examines six decades of Liu’s painting, photography, and drawing. Author Dorothy Moss illuminates the importance of family photographs in Liu’s work; Nancy Lim examines the origins of Liu’s artistic practice; Lucy R. Lippard explores issues of identity and multiculturalism; and Elizabeth Partridge focuses on Liu’s recent series based on Dorothea Lange’s Depression-era photographs. Philip Tinari, along with artists Amy Sherald and Carrie Mae Weems, among others, conveys Liu’s impact on contemporary art. Having lived through war, political revolution, exile, and displacement, Liu paints a complex picture of an Asian Pacific American experience. Her portraits speak powerfully to those seeking a better life, in the United States and elsewhere.

Recent Acquisitions

These public institutions have recently acquired works by Hung Liu: Art Bridges Foundation, Bentonville, AR; The Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, CA; The Hood Museum of Art, Hanover, New Hampshire; The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.; Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA. 

Selected Work

Exhibition Catalog

Gallery Exhibitions

Watch

In Conversation: Lava Thomas + Hung Liu, October 9, 2020
Artist Interview, Hung Liu: The Sun Also Rises, 2020

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