Bertha Lum: Through the West Gate

Artist: Bertha Lum (1869-1954)
Title: Through the West Gate  Date: 1924

View through a stone archway of an elaborate Chinese gate (paifang) that is green and topped with yellow flying eaves. Large stone incense burners emit charmingly art-nouveau-style smoke that wafts upwards in very decorative tendrils. The Achenbach and Santa Barbara Museum examples have purple instead of green on the inside of the arch, and this green coloration seems more of a variant color choice than to be the result of fading. Lum made her first trip to China in 1922, during her sixth trip to Asia. Scarce.

Condition: Very good impression and good/very good color and condition. With mounting tape remnants upper recto and very faint mat line.

Literature: Gravalos/Pulin catalog number 86 . See Achenbach FAMSF, Santa Barbara Museum of Art collections. Signature: Signed in pencil: Copyright 1924 by Bertha Lum and “no. 22”.

SKU: LUM020