Hillwood Art Museum at C.W. Post Presents:
'Peach Blossom Spring: Chinese Paintings from the Magrill Collection'
Jan. 22 - April 12, 2008

Exhibit Events at Hillwood Art Museum

Opening Reception: Thursday, Jan. 31, 5 to 8 p.m.

Lecture: "The Three Perfections in Chinese Painting: Poetry, Calligraphy, and Painting" by Richard A. Pegg, Ph. D., curator, Tuesday, Jan. 29, 7 p.m.

Lecture: "The Art and Society of the Four Masters of the Ming" by Elizabeth Hammer, vice president and specialist, Department of Chinese Paintings, Christie's, New York, Tuesday, Feb. 5, 7 p.m.

Lecture: "Images and Imagery: Experiencing Chinese Poetry" by Wenwei Du, associate professor of Asian studies, Vassar College, Tuesday, March 4, 7 p.m.

Brookville, N.Y. - In "Peach Blossom Spring," a prose poem by Chinese poet Tao Yuanming (365-427), a fisherman finds a pristine paradise concealed by flowering peach trees. Its inhabitants welcome and fete him. He leaves days later and tries to return with the local magistrate, but cannot find his way back.

The collected works in "Peach Blossom Spring: Chinese Paintings from the Magrill Collection," a new exhibition at Hillwood Art Museum at the C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University, reflects the romantic ideal of Tao's poem. The exhibition consists of nearly 40 paintings from the Ming dynasty through the modern period.

In the exhibition, scholars meditate on the beauty of nature and the passing of time in hanging scroll and hand scroll paintings; birds and flowers, as well as demon slayers, take center stage in intimate album leaves; graceful calligraphy and flowering trees fill the surfaces of fans.  The exhibition transports the viewer to a different world and features paintings by many master painters including Wu Zhen, Shen Zhou, Tang Yin, Wen Zhengming, and Dong Qichang.

"Peach Blossom Spring" will run from Jan. 22 through April 12. An opening reception is scheduled for 5 to 8 p.m. Jan. 31.

Hillwood Art Museum presents a year-round schedule of temporary and permanent exhibitions that cover topics from antiquity to the cutting edge of contemporary art from a scholarly perspective. The 4,500 square foot museum boasts a curved gallery which Phyllis Braff of The New York Times has called "one of the Island's most dramatic showcases for art." The museum, an established leader in visual arts programming on Long Island, conducts an active and well-attended education program and extensive hands-on educational programs for local schools.

Admission to Hillwood Art Museum is free and open to the public.  Museum hours are Monday to Friday 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Thursdays until 8 p.m. and Saturdays 11 a.m.-3 p.m.  Hillwood Art Museum is located on the C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University, 720 Northern Boulevard (Route 25A), Brookville, N.Y.. The museum has ample free parking and is handicap accessible. For more information, call (516) 299-4073 or visit www.liu.edu/museum.

Posted: January 28, 2008
 
Long Island University C.W. Post Campus