Tang Dynasty Earth Spirits, 8th-9th century

It’s no secret that museums everywhere rely on the generosity of collectors for much of their collections, and for the Columbia Museum of Art, it’s hard to argue any one individual has been more important than Robert Turner, a Winnsboro native who now lives out of state.

Whether it’s been his extensive collection of Roman portrait heads, contemporary paintings or Flemish portraits, Turner has made his work available to the museum time and again over the past 10 years.

Turner’s most recent gift to the museum is a major one: Eye to the East: The Turner Collection is a remarkable assemblage of Chinese ceramic work dating from as far back as 2000 B.C. to as recently as 1368 A.D., and the works are as varied as that vast time span would indicate. Opening Friday to the general public (members can see the show Thursday from 5 to 7 p.m.), the exhibit will run through May 10.

“It’s remarkable in that you can see the shifts in technique, the changes from region to region and from dynasty to dynasty,” says Todd Herman, chief curator of the Columbia Museum of Art. “These were pieces that were utilitarian, made of ceramic and porcelain. They were used in everyday life as part of rituals or for protection.

“I think what [Turner] was looking for were those subtle changes in shape and glaze type, which you can really see as you move through the collection,” Herman continues. “It’s also interesting that what you won’t find in this collection are pieces from later dynasties like the Ming dynasty, which tend to be flashier with a lot of design work and are heavily patterned.

“Here, you’re looking at the development and progression of the styles and taste through centuries, seeing certain colors come into prominence and styles. They’re amazing pieces of work that have rich, lived histories behind them.”

The oldest pieces in the 70-piece collection are two painted jars from the Xiajiadian culture, which flourished around 2000 B.C. In addition to vessels, many of the pieces are tomb figures, including guardian figures from both the Han and Wei dynasties (206 B.C. – 534 A.D.). 
“[Turner] did very well collecting Tang dynasty tomb figures,” Herman says. “Those are incredible. Something else he recently purchased and gave to us is a Han dynasty storyteller, a fairly large figure that shows a somewhat rotund Chinese man rolling his head back in laughter.

“These are significant because … prior to them, when an aristocrat died, they killed his servants to serve and entertain him in the afterlife. In the Han dynasty, much to everyone’s relief, they decided to make stoneware stand-ins, and they have a much more lasting effect in that they don’t disintegrate like human remains.

“So because of these figures, we know that storytellers traveled around, often singing or playing instruments, to entertain the wealthy. That they were appreciated enough to be made into these earthenware figures tells us a lot about that culture.”

As with any exhibition at the museum, an array of related programming is built around the featured theme. In this case, two lectures are scheduled, one on Jan. 25 entitled “Contemporary Chinese Art: 7 Things You Should Know” and another on April 5 titled “Traditions and Transformations in Chinese Art.” Also beginning in January, two films will be shown: Chinese Art: Treasures of the National Palace Museum (Jan. 9, 24 ad Feb. 14) and The Oriental Collections of the British Museum (Jan. 10, Feb. 13, 28).

“We always do as much programming as we can in conjunction with an exhibit to give it context and broaden people’s understanding of what they’re seeing,” Herman says.

The exhibition was co-curated by Donald Wood, the Virginia and William M. Spencer II curator of Asian Art at the Birmingham Museum of Art in Birmingham, Ala.

“Dr. Wood was of great help to us as we needed a Chinese ceramics specialist to come in and go through the material, write labels and text panels and organize in a way to make it as accessible to the public as possible,” Herman says. “We printed a small catalog in conjunction with the exhibit with a wonderful essay by Dr. Wood that people can take with them, and he’ll be speaking at both the [Thursday] opening and giving a gallery tour on Friday.”

For Herman, what makes Eye to the East so interesting is that it’s the only public collection of Asian art created for the Asian market in South Carolina.

“The quality and the scope of what one person has collected and donated is fantastic,” Herman says. “These aren’t just objects pulled from a storeroom from a bunch of different people’s collections. This is one person’s collection — one amazing person — and now it’s ours.”