A Pine Branch
Mount: 17 7/16 x 25 7/8 inches (44.29 x 65.72 cm)
Eight Dynasties of Chinese Painting, Nelson-Gallery-Atkins Museum, Kansas City, November 7, 1980 – January 4, 1981; The Cleveland Museum of Art, February 7 – April 5, 1981; The Asia Society, December 3, 1981 – February 28, 1982; Tokyo National Museum, October 4 – November 17, 1982. no. 264.
Discarding the Brush - Gao Quipei and the Chinese Art of Fingerpainting, Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, December 12, 1992 - February 28, 1993, No. 16.9.
Chinese Ming Painting, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri, May 12 – August 29, 1993.
Tides of Chaos, Fervor Within: Chinese Painters of the 17th Century Respond to Dynastic Upheaval, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri, September 23, 2004- February 12, 2008.
The Sacred Tripod: Buddhism, Confucianism & Daoism in Harmony, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, February 19- August 14,2011.
Images of pines and cranes have many meanings, among which wishes for a long life is the most popular. The pine tree is frequently depicted in Chinese art with twisted branches accented with needle leaves. The crane, known as king of the birds in East Asia, is admired for its graceful leaping, as if in a dance.
Gao Qipei, who was fond of using his fingers to paint, depicts these popular emblems in an elegant style of ink washes. His simple brushwork and calligraphy subtly evoke the everlasting spirit of the pine tree and crane.
Sotheby Parke-Bernet;
Purchased from Sotheby Parke-Bernet by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1979.
Takehiko Fukunaga, Howard L. Rogers, Yujiro Nakata, Kin No [Chin Nung], Bunjinga suihen (Essence of Chinese and Japanese literati paintings]. Vol. IX (Tokyo: 1976), 51, 173, pl. 56-57.
Sotheby Parke Bernet, Inc. (New York: November 2, 1979), sale number 4296, catalog no. 123, pl. 1-13.
Wai-Kam Ho, et al., Eight Dynasties of Chinese Painting: The Collections of the Nelson Gallery-Atkins Museum, Kansas City, and The Cleveland Museum of Art. (The Cleveland Museum of Art in cooperation with Indiana University Press, c1980), 358-360, no. 264.
Roger Ward and Patricia J. Fidler, eds., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection (New York: Hudson Hills Press, in association with Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1993), 331.
Schilderen Zonder Penseel, Discarding the Brush - Gao Quipei and the Chinese Art of Fingerpainting, Rijksmuseum Amsterdam (Amsterdam: Rijksmuseum, 1992), 142, No.16.9.
Deborah Emont Scott, ed., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection, 7th ed. (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2008), 373, fig. 277.
