Jenny Bagert

Tara Loader Wilkinson of the South China Morning Post recently interviewed Stephan Loewentheil, where they discussed the past, present, and future of the Loewentheil China Photography Collection, which has grown to include 20,000 photographs taken between 1850 and 1920.

“Very little photography survived the 20th century in China. So I undertook what I felt was an important task of preserving a portion of the early photographic art and history of China, which had long resided outside China, as I thought, one day, that the Chinese people would want it.” – Stephan Loewentheil

South China Morning Post, “Biggest photo archive of 19th century China needs a new home,” November 23, 2020.
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CNN’s Oscar Holland interviewed Stephan Loewentheil as part of their coverage of Vision and Reflection: Photographs of China in the 19th Century from the Loewentheil Collection.

“Photography is the greatest preserver of history. … The earliest photography preserves culture in China, and elsewhere, as it had been for many hundreds of years because it was simultaneous with the technological revolutions that were to change everything.” – Stephan Loewentheil

CNN, “Rare 19th-century images show China at the dawn of photography,” October 1, 2020.
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Viv Lawes of London Asian Contemporary Art Interviews Stephan Loewentheil about assembling the Loewenthiel Photography of China Collection.

To learn more about London Asian Contemporary please visit lacaart.com.

 

Read more about the exhibition:
Lai Fong (c.1839-1890): Photographer of China
Herbert Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University

The Lowentheil Collection’s current exhibition at Cornell University, Lai Fong (1839-1890): Photographer of China, was covered by People’s Daily, China’s largest newspaper network.

“As one of the world’s most important private collections of original historical photographs of China, Loewentheil has collected 21,000 early photographs of China from collectors, art galleries, dealers, auction houses and other channels for more than 30 years. The private collection includes more than 500 works by Lai Fong. Most of the 50 original photographs in this special exhibition were selected from the 500 photographs in the Loewentheil collection, and were created from 1870 to 1890.”

People’s Daily, “The First Exhibition of Works of by the Pioneering Chinese Photographer Lai Fong at the Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University,” April 10, 2020.
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Xinhua News Agency, China’s largest media organization, featured the Loewentheil Collection’s exhibition Vision and Reflection: Photographs of China in the 19th Century from the Loewentheil Collection in an article published January 19, 2019. Stephan Loewentheil, interviewed via email, stated that he was “happy but not at all surprised by the large number of visitors. The response to the exhibition has shown that the public is eager for exposure to the visual and artistic record preserved by Chinese photography.”

Xinhua News Agency, “Across China: Exhibition shows 19th century Chinese life through a lens,” January 19, 2019.
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Stephan Loewentheil discusses the past, present, and future of photography in China and the exhibition Vision and Reflection: Photographs of China in the 19th century from the Loewentheil Collection on “The Point with Liu Xin,” a news program on the China Global Television Network.

“The photographs all belong to the Loewentheil Collection, which is the largest, rarest, and said to be the most valuable of its kind in the world.”
– Liu Xin

New York Times reporter Eve M. Kahn highlights The Loewentheil Collection’s exhibition Qing Dynasty Peking: Thomas Child’s Photographs.

The New York Times, “Call Him an Early Adopter: Thomas Child, a 19th-Century Photographer in China,” September 22, 2016.
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TIME Magazine featured the Loewentheil Collection’s exhibition Masterpieces of Early Chinese Photography, as part of their coverage of Asia Week New York.

“Rare photographic images of the late Qing period, including the ones seen here, are on display in New York City through Mar. 20, as part of Asia Week New York. The exhibition, Masterpieces of Early Chinese Photography, presented by the 19th Century Rare Book and Photograph Shop, showcases photographs from the Stephan Loewentheil Historical Photography of China Collection, which the shop says is the largest private collection of historical photos of China.”

TIME Magazine, “These Rare Examples of Early Photography in China Captured a Disappearing World,” March 7, 2017.
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BBC News reports on Qing Dynasty Peking: Thomas Child’s Photographs, part of Asian Art in London 2015.

BBC, “Rare early photographs of Peking,” November 2, 2015.
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French photography journal L’Oeil de la Photographie (The Eye of Photography) highlighted the Loewentheil Collection’s two “landmark” exhibitions at Cornell University: Lai Fong (1839-1890): Photographer of China and Lai Fong and Thomas Child: Photographs of Late Qing Dynasty Chinese Street Life.

This unprecedented exhibition provides a rare opportunity to see China and its people through the lens of the Chinese master photographer at the historical moment before the epochal transformations of the 20th century. … Lai’s artistic legacy, grounded in traditional Chinese art, influenced generations of photographers including contemporary Chinese image-makers.

L’Oeil de la Photographie, “Lai Fong (1839–1890) : Photographer of China,” February 26, 2020.
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For more information about the exhibition

Fine Books & Collections Magazine featured the Loewentheil Collection’s concurrent Lai Fong exhibitions – Lai Fong (c. 1839-1890): Photographer of China and Lai Fong and Thomas Child: Photographs of Late Qing Dynasty Chinese Street Life – in its latest issue.

“The landmark exhibition … presents nearly 50 Lai Fong photographs made in the 1870s and 1880s of China. The photographs have been selected from the renowned Loewentheil Collection, which includes more than 21,000 early photographs of China. The exhibition features magnificent views of a rapidly growing Hong Kong, Guangzhou, Beijing, Shanghai, Fuzhou, and Xiamen, and important early portraits of the diverse people of late Qing Dynasty China.”

Fine Books & Collections, “First Exhibition of Nineteenth-Century Chinese Photographer Lai Fong Opens in Ithaca,” February 5, 2020.
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Lai Fong (ca. 1839-1890): Photographer of China

Cornell University, Johnson Museum of Art,  Ithaca, NY
7 February 2020 – 14 June 2020

A concurrent exhibition, Lai Fong and Thomas Child: Photographs of Late Qing Dynasty Chinese Street Life, will be on view at Cornell’s Carl A. Kroch Library from February 7 to April 17, 2020.

For more information

The Loewentheil China Photography Collection and its Beijing exhibition Vision and Reflection: Photographs of China in the 19th Century were featured in That’s Shanghai, the Shanghai affiliate of China’s leading English-language publication. The magazine interviewed both Collection founder Stephan Loewentheil as well as exhibition Curator Philip Prodger on the legacy and importance of early photography in China.

“Three decades ago, New York City-based ‘super collector’ Stephan Loewentheil started acquiring early photographs of China. Now, the Loewentheil China Photography Collection counts more than 15,000 shots dating from the 1850s through the 1930s, making it one of the largest private archives of early China photography.”

That’s Shanghai, “19th Century China Revealed in this Stunning Series of Photographs,” April 4, 2019.
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UK newspaper The Daily Mail featured the Loewentheil Collection’s “singular” Beijing exhibition Vision and Reflection: Photographs of China in the 19th Century.

The Daily Mail, “From merchants to monasteries – 19th Century China in pictures,” January 15, 2019.
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Nate Pedersen of Fine Books & Collections Magazine praises the Loewentheil Collection’s Beijing exhibition Vision and Reflection: Photographs of China in the 19th Century, which “offers an exceedingly rare glimpse into the daily lives and landscapes of a country previously known to the West only through paintings and travelogues.”

Fine Books & Collections, “Rare Chinese Photographs on Exhibition in Beijing,” January 9, 2019.
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Chinese news agency Asia Pacific Daily reported on the Lowentheil Collection’s exhibition at Tsinghua University Art Museum in Beijing, Vision and Reflection: Photographs of China in the 19th Century. Exhibition Curator Philip Prodger was interviewed, saying that “[Chinese photographers] were photographing in a new way, and I think even those Western photographers were integrating some of the tradition of Chinese painting and Chinese pictorial representation in their photographs.”

Asia Pacific Daily, “Rare photographs of 19th century China on display in Beijing,” November 29, 2018.
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