Jennifer Purtle (裴珍妮)

Jennifer Purtle (Chinese name: 裴珍妮) researches focuses on the artistic landscape of China, especially that of Fujian province, engaging questions of local and regional production of painting in relation to Chinese empires (e.g., in a forthcoming monograph, Placing Local Painting in Late Imperial China). Also interested in the circulation of art objects in the medieval world system, especially in the Great Mongol Empire, she is currently working on a book-length project that traces the intersection of local and global art history in Fujian across the Song and Yuan dynasties.She also writes on topics in premodern Chinese art history and visual culture such as women artists, eco art, and optical media.

Beyond her principal areas of interest, she developed a secondary interest in the art and visual culture of twentieth-century China by teaching this material at the undergraduate and graduate levels at The University of Chicago (1998–2005), mentored by Wu Hung. These interests have culminated in her role as curator of the exhibition Reading Revolution: Art and Literacy during China’s Cultural Revolution (Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, 2016), and a co-edited volume on modern art and visual culture in East Asia (University of Chicago, 2009).

Recent Graduate Courses

• China in the Global Middle Ages
• Multiples and their Articulations in Chinese Art

Recent Undergraduate Courses

• The Artistic World of Marco Polo
• The World of Senses: Chinese Decorative Arts
• The Mechanics of the Image: A Critical History of Chinese Painting
• Materiality, Objecthood, Connoisseurship, Collecting: Early Chinese Ceramics at the ROM
• Chinese Painting as a Cultural System
• Exhibiting China (Hands-on Student-centred Curatorial Project)

Selected Publications

• Reading Revolution: Art and Literacy during China’s Cultural Revolution, Coach House Books for the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, 2016. (114 pages, 50 colour plates; principal author)
• Looking Modern: East Asian Visual Culture from the Treaty Ports to World War II, co-editor (with Hans Thomsen, University of Zürich), Art Media Resources for the Center for the Arts of East Asia, The University of Chicago, 2009. (360 pages)
• “Pictured in Relief: Comparative Iconology and Civilizational Timezones at Monreale and Quanzhou during the ‘Global Middle Ages,’ ca. 1186–ca. 1238,” Iconography Beyond the Crossroads: Image, Meaning, and Method in Medieval Art, volume in celebration of the centennial of the Index of Christian/Medieval Art, ed. Pamela A. Patton, Penn State University Press, 2021: 147–193; companion website hosted by the Index of Medieval Art, Princeton University, forthcoming (in production): https://ima.princeton.edu/appendices-pictured-in-relief
• "Salvaging Meaning: The Art of Recycling in Sino-Mongol Quanzhou, 1276–1408,” in “Medieval Re-Creations: Acts of Recycling, Revision, and Relocation,” ed. Hannah Weaver and Joseph Shack, special issue of The Medieval Globe 6.1 (2020): 57–91.
• "Whose Hobbyhorse now? A revised Foreword for Chinese Landscape Painting as Western Art History.” Journal of Contemporary Painting, 6.1-2 (2020): 11-21.
• "Double Take: Chinese Optics and their Media in Postglobal Perspective,” in “Global Art History at the 34th International Congress of the History of Art,” ed. Nancy Micklewright and Sugata Ray, Ars Orientalis 48 (2018); 71-117.

Selected Awards

• 2014–17 Principal Investigator, “Global and Postglobal Perspectives on Medieval Art and Art History,” Connecting Art Histories Initiative, Getty Foundation
• 2011–12 Ailsa Mellon Bruce Senior Fellow, Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts (CASVA), National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
• 2009 Visiting Scholar, Getty Research Institute
• 2002-2003 Getty Postdoctoral Fellowship, Getty Grant Program, Getty Foundation
• 2001 Finalist, Junior Fellowship Competition, Society of Fellows, Harvard University