Water and Moon Guanyin
Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin (OH) College, March-April 1954.
Art in Asia and the West, San Francisco Museum of Art, October-December 1957.
Tea Taste in Japanese Art, Asia House Gallery, New York, February 20-April 21, 1963.
Oriental art exhibition, Washington University, St. Louis, January 23-March 4, 1966.
Chinese Art Under the Mongols, Yale University Art Gallery, 1968-1969. Traveled to Albright-Knox Gallery, Buffalo, NY; Cleveland Museum of Art, October 1-November 24, 1968; Asia House Gallery, New York.
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. 67.
Latter Days of the Law: Images of Chinese Buddhism 850-1850, Spencer Museum of Art(organizer), August 28-October 9, 1994; Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, November 30, 1994-January 29, 1995. No. 45.
The World of Khubilai Khan: Chinese Art in the Yuan Dynasty, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY, September 20, 2010- January 2, 2011.
Guanyin (Avalokiteshiva in Sanskrit), the Bodhisattva of Mercy and Compassion, is the most popular deity across Buddhist regions. Here, the deity appears as the Water and Moon Guanyin. This Guanyin is important for Chan (Zen) Buddhism, a branch of the religion that emphasizes meditation to achieve enlightenment. The background landscape features Guanyin’s paradise of Pataloka in the Southern Sea.
At the center of the scroll is a bright blue vase that draws attention to a willow branch, the tool of Guanyin’s divine healing power. The intense blue is possibly painted with azurite or another mineral colorant, which is associated with the healing power of blue minerals.
Mathias Komor;
Purchased from Mathias Komor by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1949.
Kokka, no. 297 (February 1915), 222-223.
Im Spiegel Der Kunst: Das Zeugnis der Kuan Yin. Die Kommenden, Nr. 8, Seite 5, (25 April 1958).
Art in Asia and the West (San Francisco Museum of Art, 1957) 23, no. 182.
Li Tai Jen Wu Hua Hsuan Chi (Figure Painting in the History of Chinese Painting) (Shanghai: 1959) pl. 30.
Sherman E Lee, Tea Taste in Japanese Art, Asia House (New York: 1963) 19, no. 5.
Sherman E Lee & Wai-kam Ho, Chinese Art Under the Mongols: the Yuan dynasty, 1279-1368, cat. No. 207 (Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1968).
Osvald Siren, Chinese Painting: leading masters and principles, vol. VII (New York: Hacker Art Books, 1973) 144.
J.P. Dubosc, “Plum Blossoms in Moonlight”, Archives of Asian Art, xxvi, (New York: 1972-1973): 67, fig. 1.
Ross E. Taggart, George L. McKenna, and Marc F. Wilson, eds., Handbook of the Collections in The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City, Missouri, vol. II, Art of the Orient. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1973), 57.
Kintai no Boku-e, vol. 4 (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1975), 126, pl. 101.
Suikoku bijutsu taikei , vol IV ( Tokyo: Kodansha, 1974), pl. 10.
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), 85-86, no. 67.
Ebine Toshio, et al. Nihon suiboku meihin zufu. (Tokyo: Mainichi Shinbunsha, Heisei 4-5 (1992-1993). Vol. 1, fig. 13.
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), 320.
Marsha Weidner, Latter Days of the Law: Images of Chinese Buddhism 850-1850, Cat. 45 (Lawrence: Spencer Museum of Art, 1994), 358, pl. 21, no. 45
Sekai bijutsu daizenshu. Toyo hen (Tokyo: Shogakkan, 1997) Vol. 7, fig. 93.
Lauren Arnold, Princely gifts and papal treasures: the Franciscan mission to China and its influence on the art of the West, 1250-1350 (San Francisco: Desiderata Press, 1999) Fig. 14.
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), 349, fig. 202.
James C.Y. Watt, The World of Khubilai Khan: Chinese Art in the Yuan Dynasty, Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York: Yale University Press, 2010),86,93-94, fig.124.
