Photo by Ariel Cobbert
“Dunhuang: Through the Lens of James and Lucy Lo,” a documentary photography exhibit that captures art on the walls and ceilings in caves in China, will be at the University Museum on display until the end of April.
Part of the larger traveling exhibition “Sacred Caves of the Silk Road: Ways of Knowing and Re-creating Dunhuang” by Prince University Art Museum, the exhibition features photographs that were taken by husband and wife duo James and Lucy Lo in the 1940s. The couple traveled to Dunhuang during World War II after James took a year off to photograph the Buddhist caves temples of Mogao and Yulin. They traveled to nearly 500 caves in the Northwest China along the Silk Road, documenting artwork on the caves, which were used as places to worship and meditate. Over the course of the trip, the duo produced more than 2,500 black and white photographs of the caves that illustrate the architectural prowess of people in the region, as well as major Buddhist influence.
The Lo collection, which has been bouncing around the West Coast from Seattle to Los Angeles, made its way to Oxford after history professor Joshua Howard sought to bring part of the collection the UM museum.
“Howard wrote to us and said that he was having a conference of Asian scholars in Oxford and suggested that we have this show,” museum director Robert Saarnio said. “The credit for the show really goes to him.”
Chinese art exhibitions are a rarity at the UM museum, with the gallery displaying the photos frequently hosting contemporary works. The last exhibition on the subject occurred in 2012, featuring ceramics found across the Silk Road.
The 31-photograph exhibit is not only notable for the actual content of the photos but also for the beauty in the style of photography itself. The photographs are remarkable for their artistic quality as documentary photography. The pictures recorded caves that were complexly carved over a millennium, starting in the mid-fourth century and continuing until the 14th century, according to Marti Funke, University Museum collections manager.
“Dunhuang was the western frontier of China on the Silk Road and was a crossroads for civilizations, east and west, along with commercial good ideas and art,” she said. “Artistically, these caves are spectacular, and the artists undertook an incredible task of carving the sculptures in the caves and covering the walls and ceilings with jaw-dropping paintings.”
The artistry and talent showcased in these elaborate carvings is clear at first glance, trailing from the ceilings of the Mogao and Yulin caves to the dirt floors. The caves also depict the history of Buddhism and provide an intimate glance into spirituality and art along the Silk Road.
“These caves are truly monumental and magnificent. The long journey to the caves and the arduous task of taking the photographs in the 1940s highlights the images and their significance to the history of the Silk Road in China,” Funke said.
The exhibit opened Jan. 10 in conjunction with the Southeast Conference of the Association for Asian Studies. An opening reception was held for the exhibit Jan. 31, and a lecture on the photographs will be held at University Museum the evening of March 21. Angela F. Howard will be speaking on “Visualizing Dunhuang Buddhist Caves: Past and Present.” The event is free and open to the public.
Funke said she encourages the Oxford-University community to visit the University Museum to view the exhibit, a remarkable example of the art in documentary photography.
Trenton Scaife contributed to this article.
