Why Wang Liuqiu matters
Wang Liuqiu is a mid-20th-century Chinese woodcut printmaker and painter whose public record is thin but anchored by a real institutional holding, a woodcut titled Avenging the Dead in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. For collectors, he is a useful case study in a different kind of artist profile: one where museum documentation exists but the auction market is small, imprecisely reported, and requires care rather than assumption.
- Nationality
- Chinese
- Media
- Woodcut printmaking, Painting
- Movement
- "Republic period Chinese art (1912 to 1949), per Metropolitan Museum of Art classification"
- Education
- No documented formal art school training located in available sources. Later served as a professor at the China Academy of Art, Hangzhou, also referred to in some market databases as the China National Academy of Fine Arts. AskART additionally lists him as an executive member of the Chinese Artists' Association, a title not independently corroborated.
By the numbers
- Metropolitan Museum of ArtMuseum collectionAvenging the Dead, 1945 woodcut
- USD 11,973 to 13,119Reported auction rangehighest realized prices reported by MutualArt; specific lots and sale dates not publicly disclosed
- Professor, China Academy of ArtAcademic careerHangzhou, Zhejiang
- DeceasedStatus1919 to 2011
Selected works
Click any work to view it full screen.
Biography
Wang Liuqiu was born in 1919, reportedly in Thailand, with an ancestral home in Chao'an, Guangdong province, China. He died in 2011. No located source gives an exact day or month for either date, so both are recorded here at the year level only. He worked primarily as a woodcut printmaker; his 1945 woodcut Avenging the Dead, held today by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, is classified under the Republic period of Chinese art, 1912 to 1949. Market listings also show him working in oil on wood as late as 1980, indicating a studio practice that continued for decades after the 1945 print.
Later in his career he served as a professor at the China Academy of Art in Hangzhou, also referred to in some market databases as the China National Academy of Fine Arts. AskART additionally lists him as an executive member of the Chinese Artists' Association, a title that could not be independently corroborated in other sources. In 2022, a regional exhibition in Zhejiang paid tribute to him, describing him as a significant figure in the province's art teaching lineage. Public sources do not document his own early art training or the schools he may have attended.
Note on naming: auction-market databases index this artist under two name orders. Wang Liuqiu, family name first, is the Chinese-language convention and the form used by the Metropolitan Museum, artnet, and MutualArt. AskART lists the same artist as Liuqiu Wang, a Western-ordered inversion. Both refer to the same individual.
Critical reception
Public critical commentary on Wang Liuqiu is limited to institutional and market listings rather than published reviews or essays. No verbatim critic quotes from named writers in major outlets could be located. His clearest form of institutional recognition is the Metropolitan Museum of Art's cataloguing of Avenging the Dead, and a 2022 tribute exhibition in Zhejiang that positioned him as an important teaching figure at the China Academy of Art. That is the extent of the documented reception available.
Market
Wang Liuqiu's auction footprint is small and imprecisely documented in public sources. MutualArt reports realized auction prices up to about USD 13,119 for works on paper and USD 11,973 for paintings, but does not publish the specific lot titles, sale dates, or auction houses behind those figures. Artprice and AskART both track the artist as well, the latter under the reversed name Liuqiu Wang, but neither discloses a single, fully specified all-time record sale. Collectors should treat any claimed record price for this artist with caution until a specific, fully sourced sale can be verified directly through one of these market databases.
Selected exhibitions
| Years | Exhibition | Venues |
|---|---|---|
| 2022 | Tribute exhibition honoring Wang Liuqiu | Zhejiang, China (regional homage exhibition) |
Museum collections
- Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Authentication and provenance
No catalogue raisonne.
No catalogue raisonne has been located for Wang Liuqiu, and no certificate-of-authenticity program is documented. Public exhibition and market records are sparse, so attribution should rely on institutional documentation, such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art's cataloguing of his woodcut Avenging the Dead, and on the cataloguing standards of the individual auction house or dealer handling any given work.
Primary reference: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/895490
What collectors should know
Public information on Wang Liuqiu is sparse. No catalogue raisonne exists, and no current gallery or estate representation could be documented. Auction activity exists, but without a single verified top sale, so any comparable price should be checked directly against Artprice, AskART, MutualArt, or artnet rather than taken from a secondhand summary. The Metropolitan Museum of Art's holding of his 1945 woodcut is the most solid available reference point for authenticity and context.
Further reading and resources
Data current as of 2026-07-10.
