Mary Gates and Liu Jianxia

The stepmother of Microsoft founder Bill Gates showed off her knowledge of Chinese art on May 21, when Mary Gates lectured on China's Dunhuang Grottoes at a meeting in New York of the Chinese-American Literary Guild. She also invited artist Liu Jianxia to display her oil painting of the Dunhuang Grottoes, after Liu's new painting, An Assembly of the Buddha of Medicine, was brought to New York City.

Mary Gates, who is a private collector of Liu's work, praised the new oil painting of the Dunhuang Grottoes.

Gates is an American art historian and director of the Seattle Art Museum in the US state of Washington. Gates has a certificate with honors in the study of Chinese language and culture. She was curator of Asian art and then director of the Yale University Art Gallery in the US state of Connecticut before coming to Seattle in 1994.