Ashmolean Museum Acquires Ju Ming Sculpture

The Ashmolean announce the acquisition of a monumental sculpture by Taiwanese artist Ju Ming (b. 1938). Taichi Arch (2000) will be installed on the Museum’s main forecourt, to the left of the entrance, and opposite Henry Moore’s Three Piece Reclining Figure (1963) which is on temporary loan from the Henry Moore Foundation.

The sculpture by Ju Ming has been given to the Museum by the Juming Culture and Education Foundation in memory of Professor Michael Sullivan who died in September. Professor Sullivan was a world authority on 20th-century and contemporary Chinese art, who began collecting Chinese painting in the 1940s with his wife, Khoan.

Ju Ming, born in Taiwan in 1938, is one of the most distinguished of living Asian sculptors. Of Ju Ming’s work, Prof Sullivan commented: “It is rooted in the ‘yin’ and ‘yang’ dualism in Chinese culture, while the forms his works take owe much, even if indirectly, to modern Western art. The achievement of Ju Ming is that he has found, in his own cultural heritage, a natural source for the creation of a formal language that is both contemporary and Chinese.” Ju Ming has been exhibited around the world, across Asia, Europe, and the United States.

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