This guide is an in-depth listing of Chinese Studies resources available to students and faculty at the University of Minnesota.
Arts and Prints Collections
- ARTstorARTstor is a cross-disciplinary image database. It offers collections of approximately 300,000 art images and descriptive information covering art, architecture and archeology.
- Asia Society - Art and China's RevolutionArt and China's Revolution was an Asia Society exhibition in 2008 about Chinese art in the 1950s-1970s. 艺术与中国革命
- Barney Rosset and ChinaThe photographs from Columbia University in this exhibit were taken from 1944-1945 by Barney Rosset, a young American Army photographer. Rosset documented the Chinese Army in their pursuit of Japanese troops following the Battle of Henan-Hunan-Guangxi.
- Carter D. Holton CollectionRev. Carter D. Holton was an American missionary working in Northwest China from 1923 to 1949. Over 5,000 photos taken by him were digitized by Harvard-Yenching Library and can be browsed online.
- Cave Temples of DunhuangAn exhibition sponsored by Getty Museum.
- China Online MuseumA visual gallery of representative works of art of Chinese bronzes, calligraphy, painting, ceramics, jade, and carving.
- Chinese Cultural Revolution PostersThe collection from UCSD includes propaganda posters created by various Chinese agencies from 1968 to1989.
- Chinese Pamphlets: Political Communication & Mass Education (UMN Access Only)The collection from Center for Research Libraries includes mass education materials published in Hong Kong and in Mainland China, particularly Shanghai, in the years 1947-1954 including cartoon books, pamphlets, postcards and magazines, on topics such as foreign threats to Chinese security, Chinese relations with the Soviet Union, industrial and agricultural production, and marriage reform, produced by both Kuomintang (Nationalist) and Gongchantang (Communist) supporters.
- Chinese Paper GodsThe images in this collection from Columbia University were assembled by Anne S. Goodrich (1895-2005) in 1931, when as a Christian missionary in Peking she became interested in local folk religious practices. She studied the paper gods in this collection for much of her life.
- Chinese Political PostersThe images in this collection from UC Berkeley mostly are published during the Chinese Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) period.
- Chinese posters in Harvard-Yenching Manchukuo CollectionThe Harvard-Yenching Library's digital collection of propaganda posters from Manchukuo, the imperial Japanese puppet state established in Manchuria (northeast China) from 1932 to 1945.
- Chinese Propaganda PostersHere you can find over 3,300 Chinese propaganda posters, with information about their history, background and design. You can browse a Gallery of 200 highlights, look at over 290 theme presentations, or search and browse by poster, artist and tags.
- Committee of Concerned Asian Scholars Friendship Delegations CollectionThe collection from UCSD includes photographs contributed by Committee of Concerned Asian Scholars (CCAS) members of the 1971 and 1972 delegations, providing a lens through which to understand a young China and its people during the middle of the Cultural Revolution.
- Cultural Revolution in Images: Caricature-Posters from Guangzhou 1966-1977The collection “The Cultural Revolution in Images: Caricature-Posters from Guangzhou 1966-1977” showcases the two hundred and sixteen original posters from the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) Library. The posters are divided into two groups: Red Guards’ posters dated between 1966-1967; and images produced against the Gang of Four dated between 1976-1977.
- Dianshizhai huabao 點石齋畫報By the time the Dianshizhai began publication, Shanghai was about to surpass Canton (Guangzhou) as a hub of trade with the West. It had also become one of three Chinese cities most likely to be mentioned in Western travel accounts and fiction. The images here, however, show Shanghai as Chinese writers and artists saw it.
- Digital BodleianThe collection from the Bodleian Libraries and Oxford college libraries include some images of rare books, manuscripts, and other treasures from East Asia.
- Digital Scrolling Paintings ProjectBy Center for the Art of East Asia, University of Chicago.
- Discovering Chinese Culture Through ArtsA UMN collection of 1,260 Chinese art objects selected by the renowned ceramic scholars Harry Garrner and Margaret Medley from 75 museums around the world found in Chinese Art in Three-Dimensional Colour(donated by Mr. Jonathan R. Gross to the East Asian Library) published by the Asia Society for the Gruber Foundation in 1969.
- Gallery Guide: Chinese Arts of the BrushBy the Smithsonian's Museums of Asian Art.
- Historical Chinese Postcard Project: 1896 - 1920This database is a collection of early (1896-1920) western postcards of China. It was created under patronage from the Institut d'Asie Orientale (IAO) in Lyon, France.
- Historical Photographs of ChinaAn online digital project designed and maintained by the University of Bristol. The project locates, digitizes, and publishes online photographs of China held, largely, in private hands outside the country.
- HOLLIS ImagesHOLLIS Images is the Harvard Library's dedicated image catalog. It includes content from archives, museums, libraries, and other collections throughout Harvard University. It focuses on artistic and cultural materials.
- Hong Kong Picture ArchiveAn archive of Hong Kong related images that includes scenic photos, comics, pictures of pop stars, and more.
- Joseph Needham Photographs - Wartime China, 1943-1946The Needham Research Institute (UK) has collected about 1,000 photos that were taken by Joseph Needham during this trip to China from 1942-1946, when he was preparing his project on the history of Chinese science and technology.
- MIT Visualizing CulturesThis collection contains visual sources of Japan in the modern world and early-modern China.
- Modern Sketch 時代漫畫Modern Sketch stands out among the nearly 20 illustrated humor and satire magazines that proliferated in mid-1930s Shanghai. One can point to the remarkable openness and eclecticism of its content, and its inclusion of work by young artists who went on to become leaders in China’s 20th-century cultural establishment.
- National Museum of Asian Art: Chinese CollectionWith more than thirteen thousand objects dating from Neolithic times (circa 7000–circa 2000 BCE) to the present, the Freer and Sackler collections possess one of the finest museum holdings of Chinese art in the world. In addition to containing numerous masterworks, the collections reflect all major periods and materials of artistic production. Special strengths include remarkable ancient jades and bronzes, early Buddhist sculpture, imperial and trade ceramics, lacquer, classical paintings, and calligraphy, all of which are among the greatest treasures of Chinese art outside of China.
- North China Railway Archive 華北交通アーカイブ卢沟桥事变(七七事变)后的1937年8月,南满洲铁道株式会社(满铁)为了在华北地区扩张势力,在天津设立北支事务局(次年1月迁至北京)。与此同时,日本陆军总司令部为牵制关东军势力,并强化华北占领体制,筹建了北支那开发株式会社。在此背景下,1939年4月,“华北交通株式会社”(以下简称“华北交通”)以中日合资中国特殊法人的名义,在北京正式成立。华北交通为避开关东军的影响,不受满铁的管理,而直接归属于日陆军省军务课主导的北支那开发株式会社。“华北交通写真”指华北交通株式会社(1939-45)所藏35,000多张宣传报道用的库存照片。以往驻中国的日本“国策企业”当中,相关库存照片能如此清晰完好地保存下来的实例,极为罕见。这批珍贵的照片在战后混乱时期委托京都大学保管,今藏京都大学人文科学研究所。
- Open MuseumThis is a digital museum initiated by Academia Sinica collaborating with other Taiwan museums. It includes photos and images of museum collections from different subjects and categories.
- Pacific Rim Digital Library Alliance (PRDLA)The Pacific Rim Research Libraries Alliance, also known as PRRLA, focuses on cooperative ventures among academic libraries located around the Pacific Rim to improve access to scholarly research materials. The collections include books, archives, photos, videos, etc. Each collection can be viewed through individual institution website.
- Photographs of Pre-1949 ChinaA UMN collection taken from the YMCA Archives, this collection of 717 black and white photos taken by YMCA employees in China between 1896 and 1949 were digitized and cataloged in this project.
- Posters of the Chinese Independent Film FestivalsThe collection from UCSD includes Chinese Independent Film Festival posters and ephemera from the Li Xianting Film Fund Archive and REEL China Film Festival that occurred during 2004 to 2016.
- Shackford Collection of Photographs of ChinaThe collection from University of Hawaii at Manoa includes photographs taken during the late 1920s and early 1930s by John B. Shackford during his travels and tenure as an English teacher in southern China.
- Sidney D. Gamble's PhotographsA Duke University collection. Sidney D. Gamble (1890-1968), an avid amateur photographer and a sociologist, traveled throughout the country to collect data for social-economic surveys and to photograph urban and rural life, public events, architecture, religious statuary, and the countryside.
- The Sogdians: Influencers on the Silk RoadsThe Sogdians: Influencers on the Silk Roads is a new digital exhibition that explores Sogdian art through existing material culture. It focuses on the golden age of the Sogdians, from the fourth to the eighth centuries CE, when Sogdiana flourished through trade and agriculture. Sogdian emigrant communities spread across China, South and Southeast Asia, and into the Central Asian steppe and Mongolia. By the Smithsonian's Museums of Asian Art.
- Souvenir de ChineThe collection from Harvard-Yenching Library includes photographs of Japanese occupation of Shanghai and Nanking between 1932 and 1938.
- Virtual ShanghaiVirtual Shanghai began in 2000 as a collaborative project between the Institut d’Asie Orientale (CNRS-University of Lyon) and the Center for Chinese Studies of UC Berkeley. It contains a maps collection and an image and media collection focusing on Shanghai historical photographs.
- World Digital LibraryCreated by UNESCO and the Library of Congress, the World Digital Library provides free online access to world cultural treasures. Includes manuscripts, maps, rare books, musical scores, recordings, films, prints, photographs, and architectural drawings from a variety of countries.
- 中国高清数字书画博物馆An online Chinese art museum focusing on Chinese paintings and calligraphy.
- 台灣文化部典藏網A digital gallery by Taiwan Minister of Culture. It covers collections from museums and institutions across Taiwan.
- 国家图书馆古籍资源库 前尘旧影The National Library of China photo collection has 3074 sets of photos, recording the history of events, people, architecture, clothes, etc.
Databases & Digital Projects
- Chinese Iconography Thesaurus 中國圖像誌索引典The Chinese Iconography Thesaurus (CIT) is freely accessible and brings together sinology, art history and information studies to create the first alternative classification scheme, especially designed for the Chinese visual culture, with a complementary image archive.
- Digital DunhuangGuided by cultural relics protection philosophy, this Digital Dunhuang Project is pursuing overall digitization, including collection, processing and storage of the Dunhuang Grottoes and related cultural relics by using advanced science and technology. It integrates all kinds of data including the photos,videos,3D data and other literature data into a digital repository of cave cultural relics which is diversified and intellectual, and can be co-shared globally through Internet.
- Digital Museum of Shadow 皮影数字博物馆Shadow, commonly known as “shadow & lamp” or “leather-silhouette show”, is one of the oldest forms of folk art in ancient China. It is a plastic art made of donkey skin or cowhide, and also a kind of performing art which is operated by artists, by combining saying, singing and music.
- Digital Silk RoadDigital Silk Road Project is a digital humanities research project about creating digital archives of cultural heritage based on collaboration between informatics and humanities.
- Dunhuang Collection at Fu Ssu-nien Library at Academia SinicaThe Fu Ssu-nien Library at Academia Sinica contains forty-nine manuscripts that appear to be from the fifth to the thirteenth centuries.
- International Dunhuang Project 國際敦煌項目IDP is a ground-breaking international collaboration to make information and images of all manuscripts, paintings, textiles and artefacts from Dunhuang and archaeological sites of the Eastern Silk Road freely available on the Internet and to encourage their use through educational and research programmes.
- Xiangtangshan Caves ProjectThe Xiangtangshan Project has sought to acquire a better understanding the caves in broader narratives of the art and visual culture of the Northern Qi period and of the history of Buddhism in China. This website serves as a database of the project's results and a resource for future research.
- Yale Silk RoadThe collection serves as a multi-disciplinary resource with relevance to students and faculty working in the fields of art and archaeology, religious studies, history, East Asian languages and literatures, Central Asian and Islamic studies.
- 印谱文献虚拟图书馆本資料庫以著名金石學者林章松先生松蔭軒(印學資料館)所藏印譜爲基礎,複製全文圖版,編撰書志目錄,配置檢索系統,建立以“專門、學術、開放、公益”爲宗旨之服務平臺。
- 東洋文化研究所東アジア美術研究室This is the database of Tokyo University. It includes 2 catalogs and 1 database of Chinese painting.
- Asia Art Archive 亚洲艺术文献库AAA has one of the most comprehensive collections of primary and secondary source material on contemporary Asian art. The public can access over 27,000 titles, free of charge, in its collection and from its website. The secondary materials are organized into eight categories: exhibition catalogues, monographs, reference books, periodicals, audio-visuals, AAA files, invitation cards, leaflets and clippings
Last Updated: Jan 7, 2025 3:24 PM
URL: https://libguides.umn.edu/china_advanced