Jennifer Purtle, in the Department of Art, is cross-appointed to the Department of Religion, the Department of East Asian Studies, and the Department of Textiles and Costume, Royal Ontario Museum (as a Research Associate). She completed her Bachelor of Arts at Amherst and her PhD at Yale. Her currents academic interests include Chinese art and visual culture from the Six Dynasties to the present. In particular, she focuses on the cultural geography of artistic production, urbanism, East/West exchange, optics and optical media, Chinese contemporary art and its various historical and geographical contexts. She was written books, articles, reviews, essays and received some post doctoral awards.
Department of Art
BA (Amherst), PhD (Yale).
Sidney Smith Hall, Room 6036, 100 St George Street
tel: (416) 946-3958
email: jenny.purtle@utoronto.ca
Areas of Academic Interest
Chinese art and visual culture from the Six Dynasties to the present, in particular, the cultural geography of artistic production, urbanism, East/West exchange, optics and optical media, Chinese contemporary art and its various historical and geographical contexts.
Cross-Appointments
Department of East Asian Studies; Department and Centre for the Study of Religion; Department of Textiles and Costume, Royal Ontario Museum (Research Associate).
Education
Yale University PhD, History of Art, December 2001; MPhil, 1994; MA, 1990.
Amherst College BA, magna cum laude, Fine Arts, 1989.
Sichuan University Jinxiu zheng (Certificate, two-year), Chinese Archaeology, 1988.
Books
Peripheral Vision: Fujian Painting in Chinese Empires, 909-1646, University of Hawai’i Press and Hong Kong University Press, forthcoming 2010.
Looking Modern: East Asian Visual Culture from the Treaty Ports to World War II, (co-editor, with Hans Thomsen, University of Zurich), Art Media Resources for the Center for the Arts of East Asia, The University of Chicago, 2009.
Chapters/Articles/Essays
“The Icon of the Woman Artist: Guan Daosheng (1262-1319) and the Painting of Female Power at the Ming Court circa 1520,” The Blackwell Companion to Asian Art, Rebecca Brown and Deborah Hutton, editors, Blackwell Publishing, forthcoming 2010.
“Scopic Frames: Devices for Seeing China circa 1640,” Art History, forthcoming 2010.
“Rainmakers: Dragons and their Painters in Song (960-1279) China,” for The Zoomorphic Imagination in Chinese Art and Culture, Eugene Wang, editor, Boston: Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum/Periscope Press, forthcoming 2010.
“Whose Hobbyhorse?,” Introduction for James Elkins, Why Chinese Landscape Painting is Western Art History, Hong Kong University Press, 2009.
“Money Making Nation: Picturing Political Economy in Banknotes of the Qing-Republican Transition,” Looking Modern: East Asian Visual Culture from the Treaty Ports to World War II, Jennifer Purtle and Hans Thomsen, editors, Chicago: Art Media Resources for the Center for the Arts of East Asia, The University of Chicago, forthcoming 2009.
“Introduction: Twin Stars of the Silver Screen and Modern Looking China,” Looking Modern: East Asian Visual Culture from the Treaty Ports to World War II, Jennifer Purtle and Hans Thomsen, editors, Chicago: Art Media Resources for the Center for the Arts of East Asia, The University of Chicago, forthcoming 2009.
“Objects without Borders: Cultural Economy and the World of Artifacts,” in Crossing Cultures: Conflict, Migration and Convergence, Jaynie Anderson, editor, Melbourne: The Miegunyah Press (an imprint of the University of Melbourne Press), 2009.
〈东西无边界:文化经济与艺术文物世界〉，《首侑 “中国当代艺术•国际论坛”: 2009 北京国际中国当代艺术理论批评研讨会论文合辑》, 詹姆斯•艾金斯 和 将奇谷，编辑，北京：亚洲艺术研究所，2009：上册,14－20页. [Chinese-language translation of “Objects without Borders: Cultural Economy and the World of Artifacts;” in The First “China Contemporary Art Forum”: 2009 Beijing International Conference on Art Theory and Criticism, Collected Essays, James Elkins and Jiang Qigu, editors, Beijing: Research House for Asian Art, 2009: vol. 1, 14-20.]
“Placing Chinese Painting History: The Cultural Production of the Geohistory of Painting Practice in China,” Time and Place: The Geohistory of Art, Thomas da Costa Kaufmann, editor, London: Ashgate Press, 2005: 135-151.
“The Great Buddhas’ Roving Eyes: Imaging Animation and Animating Images between Han and Tang,” Between Han and Tang: Art in a Transformative Age, Wu Hung, editor, Beijing: Wenwu Press, 2004: 117-155.
“Foundations of a Regional Visual Tradition and Visuality: Fujian Painting of the Song and Yuan Dynasties,” Proceedings of the International Conference on Region and Network – The Last Thousand Years of Chinese Art, Ch’en Pao-chen, editor, Taipei: Graduate Institute of Art History, National Taiwan University, 2001: 91-140.
Contributions to Collaborative Projects
The Laurence King Atlas of World Art, John Onians, Consulting Editor, Laurence King, 2004.
Map Spreads for China and Tibet (1300-1500), China and Tibet (1500-1650), China and Tibet (1650-1800), China and Tibet (1800-1900): 138-139; 200-201; 202-203; 250-251.
Women Writers of Traditional China: An Anthology of Poetry and Criticism, Kang-i Sun Chang, editor, Stanford University Press, 2000.
Translations of the poems and critical biographies of Guan Daosheng (1262-1319), Xue Susu (ca. 1564-ca. 1637), and Xiang Lanzhen (fl. m. 17th cent.): 126-131, 227-229, 290-291.
Reviews
Timothy Brook, Vermeer’s Hat: The Seventeenth Century and the Dawn of the Global World (Viking Canada, 2008), University of Toronto Quarterly, Letters in Canada Edition, forthcoming 2010.
John E. Vollmer, Dressed to Rule: 18th Century Court Attire in the Mactaggart Art Collection (University of Alberta Press, 2007), University of Toronto Quarterly, Letters in Canada Edition, 78.1 (2009): 247-248.
Craig Clunas, Empire of Great Brightness: Visual and Material Cultures of Ming China, 1368-1644 (Reaktion Books, 2007), The China Quarterly 194 (June 2008): 459-61.
Hiram To, Donna McAlear, Winnipeg Art Gallery, Hiram To don’t let me be misunderstood (Winnipeg Art Gallery, 2005), University of Toronto Quarterly, Letters in Canada Edition 76.1 (2007): 651-652.
“Even Exchange: Craig Clunas’ Elegant Debts [Reaktion Books, 2004] and What Art History and Sinology Offer Each Other,” Ming Studies 54 (Fall 2006): 107-114.
Postdoctoral Awards
SSHRC Standard Research Grant, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, 2008-2011.
Visiting Scholar, Getty Research Institute, 2009.
J. Paul Getty Postdoctoral Fellowship in the History of Art, Getty Grant Program, 2002-2003.
Finalist, Junior Fellowship Competition, Society of Fellows, Harvard University, 2001.