Regional Oral History Office University of California the Bancroft Library Berkeley, California

Regional Oral History Office University of California The Bancroft Library Berkeley, California

Terese Tse Bartholomew THE ASIAN ART MUSEUM ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

Interviews conducted by Martin Meeker in 2013

Copyright © 2013 by The Regents of the University of California Since 1954 the Regional Oral History Office has been interviewing leading participants in or well-placed witnesses to major events in the development of Northern California, the West, and the nation. Oral History is a method of collecting historical information through tape-recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. The tape recording is transcribed, lightly edited for continuity and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewee. The corrected manuscript is bound with photographs and illustrative materials and placed in The Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley, and in other research collections for scholarly use. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account, offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is reflective, partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable.

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All uses of this manuscript are covered by a legal agreement between The Regents of the University of California and Terese Tse Bartholomew dated August 14, 2013. The manuscript is thereby made available for research purposes. All literary rights in the manuscript, including the right to publish, are reserved to The Bancroft Library of the University of California, Berkeley. Excerpts up to 1000 words from this interview may be quoted for publication without seeking permission as long as the use is non-commercial and properly cited.

Requests for permission to quote for publication should be addressed to The Bancroft Library, Head of Public Services, Mail Code 6000, University of California, Berkeley, 94720-6000, and should follow instructions available online at http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/ROHO/collections/cite.html

It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows:

Terese Tse Bartholomew, “The Asian Art Museum Oral History Project: Terese Tse Bartholomew”, conducted by Martin Meeker 2013, Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, 2013.

Terese Tse Bartholomew Photography by Dr. Jane M. Li

Table of Contents—Terese Tse Bartholomew

Interview #1 March 28, 2013

Audio File 1 1

Birth in in Guangzhouwan, China, in 1943 – Cantonese-speaking family, raised Catholic – Grandfather, a merchant from Macao – Family lived in Yunnan Province during World War II – Growing up bilingual – Attending Sacred Heart School and Maryknoll School in Hong Kong – Content of education in Hong Kong Catholic schools, including religion – Learning Chinese culture from her mother’s side of the mother – Learning Chinese arts and calligraphy from her paternal grandfather – Seals, seal carvers, and proverbs – Leisure and social life as a teenager in Hong Kong – Holidays and festivals – Enrolling in Holy Names College in Oakland, California, in 1962 – Course of study at Holy Names – Interest in studying the arts and art history – Living off-campus rather than a dormitory – Comparison of Asian and Western arts – Enrolling in the Master of Arts in Art History at UCLA – Siblings’ life trajectories

Audio File 2 31

Art History at UCLA – Key faculty members at UCLA – Studying iconography, motifs, and puns in Chinese art – Studying with Professor LeRoy Davidson – Variety of jobs while in graduate school – Pressured to write a thesis on Chinese bronzes rather than on Chinese “popular culture” – More comparison of Asian and Western arts – Assisting with the first exhibition of Indian sculpture in Los Angeles – Securing a summer internship with the de Young Museum in San Francisco in 1968 – Assigned to the Brundage Collection at the de Young Museum for the summer – The work of a summer intern, first exposure to the Brundage Collection, studying and writing labels for individual items in the collection

Interview #2 April 4, 2013

Audio File 3 47

More on serving as an intern at the de Young / Brundage Collection – Cataloging and writing descriptions of Indian sculpture – The practice of identifying sculpture through visual content and type of stone – Fred Cline and the establishment of a library within the Brundage Collection – Working with Rene d’Argencé, the director of Brundage Collection, and Clarence and Sylvia Shangraw, curators – Other key staff members from the 1960s – Preparators, conservators, curators, and registrars and their various tasks – Reconsecrating holy objects during the period the museum was closed (early 2000s) – Exhibit preparators’ jobs – Curators’ jobs – Assisting the public with identifying privately-held art works – The example of Guiseppe Castiglione – Donation of objects to the museum by the public – Discussion of the donation of jade pieces to the Brundage Collection / Asian Art Museum – Skill of identifying art objects – Early exhibition curatorial work – More on curatorial tasks – Brundage on collecting – Pressure from Brundage on the curators to produce the collection catalog – On the pressure to stage “blockbuster” exhibitions such as the “King Tut” exhibit – The Chang Dai-Chien retrospective (1972)

Audio File 4 76

Chang Dai-Chien, a contemporary artist in an antiquities museum – On the Asian Art Museum as an antiquities museum – The controversy of the Venus Transmogrified exhibit – More on the Chang Dai-Chien retrospective – The Cyril Magnin Jade Room – Guest curating an exhibition for the Asia House in New York – Archeological Finds of the People’s Republic of China (1975), a major exhibit for the museum – Dealing with bureaucrats from the People’s Republic of China – Intellectual and physical organization of the Asian Art Museum – Serving as curator for both Indian and Southeast Asian art – Art and cultures that fall outside the museum’s purview – Ethnic art, folk art, and the problem of art from the Philippines – Debates among the curators – Museum directors and the changing direction of the museum – From primarily city funding to primarily private donations – The influence of education curators on the content of exhibits – Security problems at the museum facility in Golden Gate Park – Relationships between staff of the de Young and staff of the Asian Art Museum – Thoughts on Avery Brundage

Interview #3 April 25, 2013

Audio File 5 101

Learning display aesthetics from Brundage and Yoshiko Kakudo, Japanese curator – On meeting Bruce Bartholomew, future husband – Common interest in Chinese musical instruments and botany – Parents’ response to engagement with a Westerner – Working with her husband on The Hundred Flowers: Botanical Motifs in Chinese Art (1985) exhibition – Yixing pottery – More on the flowers exhibition – Organizing the exhibition I-Hsing (Yixing) Wares (1978) with the China Institute in America – How to determine quality in Yixing ware – On fakes, forgeries, misattributions, reproductions, and the question of quality in Yixing ware – Reviewing many of the items featured in the catalog for the exhibition I-Hsing (Yixing) Wares (1978) – Scholars, emperors, and collecting Yixing ware – Travel to Yixing, learning to be a potter – Exhibition on Yixing ware at the Hong Kong Museum on Art – More on forgery and quality – The boom in quality Yixing ware in the 1980s

Audio File 6 124

More on Yixing pottery – 1978 Sotheby’s auction of Yixing ware and Gu Jingzhou, the master – The rise of female potters – Proposition 13 (1978) and its impact on exhibitions at the Asian Art Museum – Religious Art of Nepal [1980] exhibition – Other exhibitions, early to mid-1980s – Protests over an exhibition of Tibetan art – More on The Hundred Flowers exhibition and flower motifs in Asian art – Exhibition on blue-and-white porcelain – Departure of d’Argencé and arrival of Rand Castile –Damage from the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake – Thoughts on the Old Main Library as the site for the new Asian Art Museum – Connoisseur Art Council of the Museum’s Board of Trustees and the purchase of art for the collection – Outreach and education

Interview #4 May 21, 2013

Audio File 7 150

Bartholomew’s aesthetic preferences in Asian art: “I just like things with a deeper meaning” – Myth and Rebuses in Chinese Art (1988) exhibition and Chinese character – Wisdom and Compassion: Sacred Art in Tibet exhibition (1991) – Funding for the exhibit and curatorial vision – Differentiating between Tibetan art and Chinese art – Perils of loaning items for exhibit – Mongolia: The Legacy of Chinggis Khan (1995) exhibition – Travel to Mongolia with Pat Berger – Selecting art for loan from museums in Mongolia – Politics of applying for large grants – Response to the Mongolian exhibition – Items from Mongolia in the museum’s permanent collection

Audio File 8 174

Relationship between Mongolia and Buddhism – Relationship between the City of San Francisco and the museum – More on the facility in Golden Gate Park in contrast to the Old Main Library facility – Hidden Meanings in Chinese Art book (2006) and Hidden Meanings: Symbolism in Chinese Art exhibit (2006) – Proposing ideas for new exhibitions – Leadership of Emily Sano and Forrest McGill – Jay Xu, the new museum director – On the place of art museums in contemporary culture – On the changing, and static, image of Asia in American culture – The challenge of blockbuster exhibitions – Developing local audiences for the museum – On the physical location of antiquities

Interview #5 May 6, 2013

Audio File 9 198

Tour of the Asian Art Museum by Terese Tse Bartholomew – Ganesh statue – Indonesian daggers – Objects in the Himalayan gallery: thogchas, arrowheads, and other pieces— Disputed tiles, forgeries, and developing a sense of discernment

Audio File 10 206

Tour of the Asian Art Museum by Terese Tse Bartholomew continued – The Gallery of Hidden Meanings: rebuses and symbolism in Chinese artifacts – Yixing ware and other pottery – Chinese snuff bottles – Chao Shao-an and Chinese Painting Since 1900 Gallery

[End of Interview] 1

Terese Tse Bartholomew was hired as the first Curator of Indian and Southeast Asian Art at the Asian Art Museum in 1969, a position she held until 1988. From 1988 through 1996 she was Curator of Indian Art and Himalayan Art and from 1997 through 2008 she was Curator of Himalayan Art and Chinese Decorative Art. She retired from the museum in 2008 and is currently Curator Emeritus. In this wide-ranging interview, Ms. Bartholomew discusses: her upbringing in Hong Kong and her college and graduate school education in California; her work for the museum and role played in collections management, staging exhibitions, and acquisitions of new items; and her areas of expertise, particularly Yixing pottery and symbolism and Chinese art and artifacts.

Interview #1 March 28, 2013 Audio File 1

01-00:00:00 Meeker: Okay, so today is the 28th of March 2013. This is Martin Meeker interviewing Terese Tse [pronounced “see”], correct?

01-00:00:16 Bartholomew: Tse [pronounced “je”].

01-00:00:18 Meeker: Tse [pronounced “je”]

01-00:00:18 Bartholomew: Uh-huh.

01-00:00:19 Meeker: Terese Tse Bartholomew for the Asian Art Museum Oral History Project and this is session number one, tape number one. So let me begin simply, actually, by asking you to state your date of birth and your name.

01-00:00:38 Bartholomew: I was born January 6, 1943. My name is Terese Tse Bartholomew.

01-00:00:46 Meeker: Okay. And can you tell me a little bit about your family background? I know in our previous conversation you had mentioned that you were born in Hainan Island?

01-00:01:02 Bartholomew: No.

01-00:01:03 Meeker: No, okay.

01-00:01:04 Bartholomew: I was born in Guangzhouwan, which was on the peninsula above Hainan Island.

01-00:01:11 Meeker: Oh, okay.

01-00:01:11 Bartholomew: This was during Second World War

01-00:01:19 Meeker: And your family was Cantonese speaking, correct?

01-00:01:23 Bartholomew: Yes.

01-00:01:24 Meeker: And you also said that you were raised Catholic. So they were Catholic, as well, I’m guessing?

01-00:01:30 Bartholomew: They were Catholic for at least five generations.

01-00:01:32 Meeker: Five generations. No kidding. Well, can you tell me maybe then a little bit about your family background? Had they been in that part of China for many generations? What kind of work did they do?

01-00:01:48 Bartholomew: For the Tse family, my father’s side, his grandfather, which is my great- grandfather, was a merchant from Macao. Many people in Hong Kong were merchants. That’s all you do. And I know very little about him. But my grandfather was a comprador.

01-00:02:16 Meeker: Was a—?

01-00:02:17 Bartholomew: Comprador. Comprador is the go between. You don’t have those now. But in the old days when the British came to Hong Kong they needed somebody who was bilingual to deal with the Chinese, which means the comprador would be paid by the British and also by the Chinese. So usually they became very rich. So my grandfather was a comprador for the Japanese steamship company. I forgot what line that was. And my grandmother came from a very rich family, the Ho’s, and her own father was also a comprador for Jardine’s. Jardine’s, that’s a very famous British company in Hong Kong. And somehow my grandfather lost all his fortune because when the Japanese attacked China, he had to give up his job. You can’t work for the enemies. So pretty soon they just lost everything. But my father had a flower shop, which was like a playground for all his friends. It was their club. And somehow the flower shop and his little farm supported us when we were born.

01-00:03:26 Meeker: And so you were born on the peninsula north of Hainan. And is this where you were raised, as well?

01-00:03:34 Bartholomew: No. Because this was during the Japanese war, Hong Kong was occupied. My father left first to go into the interior to join the Chinese army and then my mother followed and I was born on the way.

01-00:03:46 Meeker: Oh, wow.

01-00:03:48 Bartholomew: Yeah. My father didn’t wait. I thought that was nasty.

01-00:03:52 Meeker: He didn’t wait for your mother?

01-00:03:53 Bartholomew: No. But luckily, there were enough Hong Kong people to be with her, because they always traveled together in a huge group.

01-00:04:02 Meeker: So she traveled along with the army, I guess?

01-00:04:09 Bartholomew: No. She traveled with a bunch of Hong Kong refugees, all going into the interior of China because the Japanese planes cannot fly that far to bomb.

01-00:04:18 Meeker: Oh, okay.

01-00:04:18 Bartholomew: So it was pretty safe in Yunnan. That’s why the American Flying Tigers, you heard about it, they were stationed in Yunnan because it’s safe there. So I was there—

01-00:04:28 Meeker: So they stayed in the Yunnan Province, yes?

01-00:04:31 Bartholomew: Mm-hmm. So we stayed in the city of Kunming. K-U-N-M-I-N-G. And we stayed there until the Japanese surrendered and we quickly returned back to Hong Kong.

01-00:04:42 Meeker: Okay. Do you remember anything about the war?

01-00:04:46 Bartholomew: No. I remember there was a flood in Yunnan. No, I was like three years old when we came back, so was too young. I have photographs of those days.

01-00:04:57 Meeker: Sure. You remember simply by looking at the photographs of you.

01-00:05:00 Bartholomew: Right, mm-hmm.

01-00:05:02 Meeker: Not first-hand but second-hand memories.

01-00:05:03 Bartholomew: It’s interesting because in one of them I was holding a gigantic camellia and I married somebody who specialized in that type of camellia and my backyard is full of it.

01-00:05:12 Meeker: Oh, really?

01-00:05:13 Bartholomew: It’s Camellia reticulata. That’s the flower of Yunnan. Yeah.

01-00:05:20 Meeker: So when your family moves back to Hong Kong, is this when your father then becomes a florist?

01-00:05:27 Bartholomew: Became a merchant.

01-00:05:28 Meeker: Or a merchant?

01-00:05:31 Bartholomew: So he had a flower shop. And it’s mainly import-export. I don’t know exactly what he did but there’s ten of us so we barely made ends meet and my mother became a teacher of English in a Catholic school (Sacred Heart School).

01-00:05:45 Meeker: So being that you were in Hong Kong, I imagine English was as widely spoken as Cantonese? When did you learn to speak English?

01-00:05:53 Bartholomew: When we went to school. But my parents sometimes would speak English when they didn’t want us to know what they were talking about.

01-00:06:01 Meeker: Oh, really?

01-00:06:01 Bartholomew: Yes. They were both educated in English schools.

01-00:06:04 Meeker: So maybe there was a motivation for you to learn to speak English, as well?

01-00:06:07 Bartholomew: Yeah. And, also, that’s what you learned in school anyway. And my parents had lots of foreign friends, so we became bilingual. So when I came to this country, no trouble, thank goodness.

01-00:06:20 Meeker: Do you have any idea how was it your family became Catholic? You said they had been Catholic for five generations.

01-00:06:26 Bartholomew: Okay, the first one was probably so poor that the priest took care of him and his family, so they become what you call “rice Christians”; and the priest educated this man, and then he became rich and his son became rich.

01-00:06:40 Meeker: Where were they? Were they in China or were they—

01-00:06:43 Bartholomew: This person was in Macao.

01-00:06:45 Meeker: In Macao. So Macao was a Portuguese colony.

01-00:06:50 Bartholomew: Yeah.

01-00:06:50 Meeker: Okay. Because Hong Kong would not have been a Catholic colony, being English, right?

01-00:06:55 Bartholomew: But then whenever there’s some missionaries coming to Hong Kong, my family would take care of them, help them settle down, things like that. So we have many pictures of all these bishops and people like that coming through. Yeah, and our family took care of them.

01-00:07:12 Meeker: Were there many Catholics in Hong Kong at the time?

01-00:07:13 Bartholomew: Yes, some.

01-00:07:14 Meeker: There were?

01-00:07:14 Bartholomew: Yeah, there were a few major Catholic families.

01-00:07:17 Meeker: So you went to church on Sundays?

01-00:07:19 Bartholomew: Definitely.

01-00:07:21 Meeker: And Sunday school?

01-00:07:24 Bartholomew: No Sunday school in those days but we all went to Catholic schools.

01-00:07:28 Meeker: You all went to Catholic schools. What was the name of the school, the elementary school that you went to?

01-00:07:31 Bartholomew: I went to Sacred Heart School for a few years. It is run by the Italian Canossian Nuns. And then from grade five I moved to Maryknoll, run by American nuns. The Maryknoll order. So I stay there until I graduated.

01-00:07:52 Meeker: And these were all girls’ schools, yes?

01-00:07:55 Bartholomew: Girls schools.

01-00:07:56 Meeker: Can you tell me a little bit about what your education was like at Sacred Heart and Maryknoll?

01-00:08:02 Bartholomew: The classes I attended at Sacred Heart were mainly Chinese, very little English was taught. But Maryknoll, it was a major English school and Chinese was taught as a second language, which means we learned literature and history in Chinese. We have to do composition, translation. But the rest, like geography, Western history, literature, all those were in English. So in a case like this, people tend to ignore Chinese because it’s more difficult. And my only saving grace was that I loved to read stories. And so somehow I kept my Chinese all these years because of reading.

01-00:08:38 Meeker: So many of your fellow students who would have been born Chinese perhaps did not learn to read and write Chinese?

01-00:08:51 Bartholomew: No, we have to.

01-00:08:52 Meeker: Oh, you had to. Okay.

01-00:08:52 Bartholomew: I mean, as I say, there are at least three or four courses in Chinese that we have to take. We all learn. But mainly our emphasis is on English.

01-00:09:03 Meeker: The nuns would have taught at Sacred Heart and Maryknoll. Were they western?

01-00:09:12 Bartholomew: Yes.

01-00:09:13 Meeker: Western born?

01-00:09:14 Bartholomew: Western born. Italian nuns at Sacred Heart and American nuns at Maryknoll.

01-00:09:17 Meeker: And so they would have been fluent in Cantonese, as well, yes?

01-00:09:22 Bartholomew: Not really.

01-00:09:23 Meeker: Not really?

01-00:09:23 Bartholomew: No, we have to all speak English.

01-00:09:25 Meeker: Okay, all right. Well, then, who was teaching your courses in—

01-00:09:28 Bartholomew: Chinese teachers.

01-00:09:28 Meeker: Chinese teachers, okay. And they were not nuns.

01-00:09:30 Bartholomew: No.

01-00:09:32 Meeker: So you had a mix?

01-00:09:33 Bartholomew: Right. Lay teachers teaching Chinese.

01-00:09:35 Meeker: Okay, very good. I’m wondering about history and literature.

01-00:09:40 Bartholomew: English.

01-00:09:42 Meeker: English.

01-00:09:43 Bartholomew: English literature, English history.

01-00:09:45 Meeker: Okay. So you weren’t learning about Chinese history or Chinese literature or Chinese arts?

01-00:09:48 Bartholomew: In Chinese.

01-00:09:50 Meeker: You were in Chinese?

01-00:09:51 Bartholomew: No, you learned Chinese literature in Chinese but in English you learned English literature because this is the Hong Kong education system. English history. So we never learned Americans history. And we read the major poets, Shakespeare’s plays and things like this. We have to memorize Marc Antony’s speech, things like that. So it was like a British education but taught by American nuns.

01-00:10:17 Meeker: But it sounds to me, the interesting thing about it, was that it was truly a dual education. It was almost like you were going to two schools at once. The English speaking school that was teaching English history and English literature and then the Chinese speaking school that was teaching Chinese literature and Chinese history.

01-00:10:35 Bartholomew: And I didn’t like Chinese literature because of straight memorization. But I like history because I like stories. So as long as you pass one of them, you are fine. So I always flunked Chinese literature but passed Chinese history. [laughter]

01-00:10:51 Meeker: Do you remember the teaching styles being substantially different between the English speaking nuns and then the lay teachers?

01-00:11:00 Bartholomew: Same.

01-00:11:01 Meeker: The same?

01-00:11:01 Bartholomew: Yeah. You have to be very obedient, you don’t ask questions. You only answer questions. So when we came to America, professors always wonder, “How come the Chinese girls, they never say anything?” Because we didn’t. That was the system. You don’t say anything. You just listen to them.

01-00:11:19 Meeker: Do you think that there is like a natural—I don’t know if natural’s the right word—but a clear relationship between, say, Confucianism and Catholicism? Do they work together well?

01-00:11:33 Bartholomew: Oh, yes. Obedience.

01-00:11:34 Meeker: Filial piety.

01-00:11:35 Bartholomew: Filial piety. They all work fine.

01-00:11:44 Meeker: What sort of religious education was at their schools?

01-00:11:46 Bartholomew: Catholic.

01-00:11:47 Meeker: Catholic.

01-00:11:48 Bartholomew: Mm-hmm. So the Bible was part of the classes.

01-00:11:50 Meeker: Sure. Was there much religious education about native Asian traditions, such as Buddhism or Confucianism?

01-00:11:57 Bartholomew: None. None.

01-00:11:58 Meeker: None.

01-00:11:59 Bartholomew: No. Don’t forget, in Catholicism God is the one true God. No. Nobody mentioned any other religions in schools. In fact, I didn’t learn anything until I came to this country and worked in the museum.

01-00:12:12 Meeker: So even in your Chinese history classes, there wasn’t much education about Buddhism?

01-00:12:18 Bartholomew: None. No. But philosophy, yes. But Confucianism is not a religion, it’s a philosophy. We have to memorize chapters and chapters of his writings, the major ones. Mencius, Confucius, Lao Tzu. We all have to know about these sages. But we have a good grounding because we all had to sit for the school leaving examination after the fifth year in high school and you were tested on such things. I remember I had to write a composition and it was on Confucius.

So for me it was very easy. You write a little bit about his life and just quoted what he said. And I did well, to my teacher’s surprise.

01-00:13:05 Meeker: It is pretty interesting. So that really any education that had to do with spiritual life or the afterlife was strictly Catholic, I guess. But there was still room in education for Chinese or Eastern philosophies to be understood.

01-00:13:24 Bartholomew: Yes.

01-00:13:25 Meeker: I wonder about this point, about the relationship between Catholicism and Confucianism. Did the nuns ever let on that there was a relationship?

01-00:13:40 Bartholomew: No. No. No comparative religion.

01-00:13:44 Meeker: Yeah. Well, that is a big area of study right now. So there was no real comparison of different world views. Interesting. I wonder, growing up, did you yourself do any of that comparison?

01-00:13:58 Bartholomew: I was interested. I remember when my maternal grandmother died. Some nuns came, Chinese nuns, which I’ve never seen before, and they’re sitting there reading sutras. You always have people saying prayers. So they were saying Chinese prayers and they were turning pages. So I stood behind wanting to see what they were reading. It was all in classical Chinese. And then my father grabbed me away and said, “You can’t see things like this.” In those days, as a Catholic, you cannot step inside the Protestant church. Because one of our high school teachers got married, we had to ask permission to attend a wedding. It was that strict, which I thought is ridiculous. Of course, the more you don’t want me to know, the more I want to know. So when I came to the museum and started working on Tibetan art, I love it. I learned about all these other gods.

01-00:14:48 Meeker: Oh, okay. So what were those Chinese nuns reading?

01-00:14:52 Bartholomew: They were reading sutras.

01-00:14:54 Meeker: Sutras.

01-00:14:54 Bartholomew: Yeah.

01-00:14:55 Meeker: So Buddhist.

01-00:14:57 Bartholomew: Buddhist. Mm-hmm.

01-00:14:58 Meeker: Interesting. So were they Buddhist nuns or they were—

01-00:15:00 Bartholomew: Yeah, they were Chinese Buddhist nuns.

01-00:15:02 Meeker: Oh, okay, all right.

01-00:15:03 Bartholomew: Yeah, they were just saying prayers for the dead in Chinese. Yeah.

01-00:15:05 Meeker: Yeah, interesting. Was your grandmother a Buddhist then?

01-00:15:09 Bartholomew: She wasn’t a practicing Buddhist but she was sort of Buddhist. It’s mainly ancestral worship. So what happens when a Chinese died, you get a Taoist priest to come say some prayers, you get a Buddhist priest to come read some sutras, just to cover all the angles.

01-00:15:28 Meeker: I remember in this Chinese history class I mentioned, they talked about the mainstream thought, belief, and practice had been not simply Buddhist or not simply Confucianism or Taoism but they called it syncretism. That’s kind of a very academic word but it means a blending of different ways of thinking or belief systems.

01-00:15:53 Bartholomew: The only thing we know is when we visited our maternal grandparents, there’s always an altar room. No gods. Just pictures of the dead relatives and you go in and bow three times and out you go.

01-00:16:07 Meeker: Okay. But they were still Catholic?

01-00:16:08 Bartholomew: No, they are not. Not that side. My Tse side is Catholic, the Ho side isn’t. Yeah. So that was all we knew. Worshipping the ancestors is very important.

01-00:16:20 Meeker: And so even though your grandfather was Catholic, he still maintained some of the traditions perhaps of his own ancestors and ancestor worship or—

01-00:16:32 Bartholomew: No, not in the Tse family. I’m talking about my mother’s side.

01-00:16:36 Meeker: Oh, okay. All right.

01-00:16:37 Bartholomew: Yeah, that side. Yeah. But my father’s side, both grandparents were Catholic. So no family altar with pictures.

01-00:16:49 Meeker: Did this ever spur any exploration on your own of more indigenous Chinese spiritual practices or traditions?

01-00:17:01 Bartholomew: Not spiritual practices but traditions because I would visit my godfather, who took care of me when I was a baby in China. And I remember he had three huge statutes of the god of longevity, god of wealth, and god of blessings. And my mother would say, “Oh, this is folk [Cantonese pronunciation for fu].” And I said, “How come we don’t have it in our house?” So actually my mother taught me quite a bit on Chinese culture, but not from my father’s side of the family. Except for my grandfather, who was a calligrapher, and we learned something from him.

01-00:17:37 Meeker: And what was that?

01-00:17:39 Bartholomew: He taught us calligraphy, how to recognize a good Chinese seal in ink stone and I was the oldest, so he would take me to exhibitions and say, “Okay, this is good calligraphy, this is bad calligraphy, this is a good painting, that’s a bad painting.” So I learned.

01-00:17:56 Meeker: Well, I wonder, can you give me a little more information on what it was that he taught you? I’m not an expert in calligraphy, nor am I an expert on the ink stones but what was it that he taught you about this art?

01-00:18:10 Bartholomew: Mainly whether the brush stroke is weak or strong. Because when we write, we write with strength, really, and when I watch my husband write, he would go like this. We never do that. You got to be very steady. So what my grandfather looked for was the strokes that made up a character. He’d say, “Oh, this stroke is no good. Oh, this is very good.” So you just learn. And then when they write, there should be the spirit of the line. You have to measure the straight line coming down. So if your character goes like this, that’s not good. And if he saw a good example, he would say, “Okay, the spirit of the line is good in this calligraphy.”

01-00:18:51 Meeker: So what you’re drawing here, just for sake of explanation, it’s the way in which you read down the page, correct? And you want to make sure that the characters are lined up.

01-00:19:03 Bartholomew: Right, characters, right. The alignment, right.

01-00:19:06 Meeker: Everything at ninety degree angles opposed to sort of wavering down the page.

01-00:19:08 Bartholomew: Yeah, wavering. And it could be very embarrassing because people were following us, listening to him.

01-00:19:16 Meeker: Really? Oh.

01-00:19:18 Bartholomew: Of the exhibitions, the artists were probably right behind. [laughter]

01-00:19:20 Meeker: Sure, okay. [laughter] So either they were very gratified or they were humiliated.

01-00:19:27 Bartholomew: Right. [laughter]

01-00:19:29 Meeker: I wonder, as somebody who does not read Chinese, the strength of the calligraphy, is that mostly a matter of aesthetics and style?

01-00:19:43 Bartholomew: Yes.

01-00:19:44 Meeker: Or is it a matter also of comprehension, of actually being able to understand what each character represents.

01-00:19:51 Bartholomew: No, no, no. Because no matter how you write it, it means the same thing. But it shows you your character as you write. Whether you are a strong person or a weak person, it shows in your calligraphy. You can see that in western calligraphy. Same thing. You can read people’s character. The same thing as Chinese.

01-00:20:10 Meeker: Because of the writing. [laughter]

01-00:20:11 Bartholomew: [laughter] Yeah.

01-00:20:15 Meeker: Interesting. So your grandfather took you to exhibitions and—

01-00:20:21 Bartholomew: I was the only one because I was the oldest kid.

01-00:20:26 Meeker: Why do you think that he took you under his wing like that?

01-00:20:29 Bartholomew: I happened to be the oldest. No matter whether I was a boy or girl, I was of the right age to understand these things, so he would take me along.

01-00:20:39 Meeker: Speaking of male and female children, your siblings, you said there were ten kids, is that right? What was the mix?

01-00:20:52 Bartholomew: We have three girls and then two boys and then two girls, a boy, and two more girls. There are three boys and seven girls in my family. And as far as my paternal grandfather is concerned, there’s no difference. Girls and boys, they are exactly the same. In fact, he loved me the most, I think. But for the Ho side, we were considered outside grandchildren. Your real grandchildren are the ones from your sons. Your daughter’s grandchildren are kind of the outside grandchildren. So I remember. I wasn’t there but I heard the story of my Ho grandfather took a whole bunch of kids out and people said, “Oh, Mr. Ho, congratulations. You have so many grandchildren.” He said, “Oh, no, only these few.” There was a whole bunch of other grandchildren, my other cousins, and they were furious and when they told me, I was furious. So I won’t forgive him for saying a thing like this.

01-00:21:43 Meeker: So in other words, your mother really became a member of a different family, a different patrilineal lineage.

01-00:21:51 Bartholomew: Yeah. Yeah, that’s the way it is. No, they say that a girl leaving home is like water tossed outside. It’s that bad.

01-00:22:03 Meeker: Really? And so it’s fairly permanent?

01-00:22:06 Bartholomew: Right.

01-00:22:07 Meeker: And it doesn’t come back.

01-00:22:09 Bartholomew: No. But I did remember my mother taking me to go to visit my maternal grandmother after school and she would read me a Chinese ghost story. So I thought that was rather nice.

01-00:22:22 Meeker: Interesting. So your interest in arts, you think you would attribute to your grandfather’s influence?

01-00:22:30 Bartholomew: Yes. My Tse grandfather.

01-00:22:34 Meeker: Yeah. So what other kinds of arts were you exposed to aside from calligraphy?

01-00:22:39 Bartholomew: He had a lot of fan paintings in his closet. By that time, all his possessions were in one closet. Poor guy. This was a very rich man. And we would visit him every weekend, every Sunday, some of us from my family and some of my cousins, and we would all make him open his closet and take out everything to show us. So we didn’t like his ink stones. They were all black and boring. But we wanted to see his fan paintings and other things.

01-00:23:14 Meeker: You had mentioned the good versus not good quality of ink stone. What did your grandfather teach you about discernment in that?

01-00:23:20 Bartholomew: He only showed us the best. So he collected the duan stone. D-U-A-N. It came from the Guangdong Province. It’s one of the famous ink stones of China, and he would make us lick it. So when you lick it, it’s very coarse. You felt with your tongue. But when you touch it with your hand, it’s very smooth. So he said, “Now, that’s good quality.”

01-00:23:40 Meeker: So is it a quality of the stone itself that’s quarried, I’m guessing.

01-00:23:43 Bartholomew: Yes, right.

01-00:23:48 Meeker: And so did you ever learn what specific variety of mineral it was or—

01-00:23:53 Bartholomew: No.

01-00:23:53 Meeker: No, okay.

01-00:23:55 Bartholomew: We just knew that this was a stone that came from under a lake. People had to dive down to cut it and bring it up. And, of course, when it comes to licking, then half of us would run away. Who wants to lick an ink stone? [laughter]

01-00:24:09 Meeker: [laughter] Did you lick it?

01-00:24:09 Bartholomew: Of course. I want to see what it’s like. Yeah.

01-00:24:14 Meeker: And so it was smooth by the touch but it was coarse?

01-00:24:17 Bartholomew: Yeah. But, of course, your tongue is more sensitive. That’s all.

01-00:24:19 Meeker: Oh, okay. I see. That’s interesting.

01-00:24:22 Bartholomew: But I was always interested in what he had.

01-00:24:27 Meeker: I wonder the implication of that. Was it so that the stamp itself could have a very clear and precise character on it or that it was able to last for a long time?

01-00:24:43 Bartholomew: No, it’s mainly who carved it. So it’s the artist among seal carvers. So you say, “Okay, this is carved by so and so,” and people would be very impressed.

01-00:24:52 Meeker: Okay. And what did the seal say? Was it simply the person’s name or—

01-00:24:56 Bartholomew: Okay. So our names are usually made of three characters. Your last name, then your given name. Okay. So my name is Tse and then my given name is Ruihua. So you use two seals. So what usually happens is that one would be positive and the next one would be negative, meaning its white characters with the red background. So usually you do that. Or you simply have one seal with three characters on it. And then if this is a painting, you will have your seal stamped down here. Up here you have a proverb seal. So I have several of those and some my grandfather had.

01-00:25:49 Meeker: Is a proverb sort of like a motto that’s particularly important to you?

01-00:25:53 Bartholomew: Yeah. Your philosophy in life.

01-00:25:59 Meeker: I’m curious. What did some of your proverbs say?

01-00:26:03 Bartholomew: For mine, the one that I use, I don’t really like it. It’s “Life is Like a Dream.” It came from a famous Chinese essay somewhere which I memorized as a child. Somebody else carved it for me. But I just like the shape, so I use it. Not that I like it. So later on when I went to China and knew that somebody could carve seals for me, I asked them to carve my grandfather’s favorite saying. It was “Finding Peace Wherever You Go.” Like whatever you meet, try to find some peace in it. I guess that was his philosophy in life. I thought, “Okay, I like that.” So I had a seal carved with that saying.

01-00:26:41 Meeker: What is that in Chinese?

01-00:26:42 Bartholomew: This: “You meet this, you find peace.”

01-00:26:49 Meeker: You meet this, you find peace.

01-00:26:52 Bartholomew: Yeah. Like whatever you meet, you try to find peace.

01-00:26:56 Meeker: Well, I don’t know. I was raised Catholic so I don’t want to denigrate Catholicism but that sounds a little more Buddhist, perhaps, than Catholicism.

01-00:27:05 Bartholomew: Yeah. This is actually Taoist. It’s kind of like you don’t give into all your problems. You try to find some solutions. You try to find some peaceful solutions out of all these bad situations. I guess as a Catholic, what happens? You pray immediately, right? You pray. But the Chinese would just think of some other ways without praying.

01-00:27:33 Meeker: So peace in a spiritual sense but also in actually a material resolution to whatever problems you might come across in some ways?

01-00:27:50 Bartholomew: Yeah. Or just think of how to solve your problem. Also, find good in bad things. It’s like a famous story of a man who lost a horse. And people said, “That’s too bad, you lost a horse.” Then the horse came back and then his son got on it and broke his leg. Now, is it good or bad that the horse came back? It’s that kind of thing.

01-00:28:22 Meeker: So when you’re in high school, I’m wondering what you and your friends imagined life would hold for you. I’m thinking when I was in high school, and my generation and the kind of high school that I went to, it was a given that everyone was going to go to college and that there was going to be some sort of career and marriage or something beyond that. When you were in high school, what did you and your friends think life would hold for you?

01-00:28:55 Bartholomew: We never talk about boys. That’s one thing. Because we don’t date. You’re absolutely forbidden to date, at least through the fifth year of high school. So what we do is talk about passing examinations because that’s always hanging over you. You’ve got to pass this examination that is coming up. Therefore, we already knew what was going to happen: that if we do well, we would be sent to America to study. So there’s something just brainwashed into us and you’re thinking of that.

01-00:29:30 Meeker: Is that why you went from the Sacred Heart School to the Maryknoll School, because it was sort of like a feeder school to go to the United States?

01-00:29:38 Bartholomew: No. Because many people from Sacred Heart also came to United States. You do two things. If you’re rich, you go to England to study. If you’re poor you come to America.

01-00:29:50 Meeker: Oh, really?

01-00:29:51 Bartholomew: Because you can work your way through college. In England you can’t do that. So we know that we would be coming to America. No, I guess we never talk about things like this. We don’t think.

01-00:30:08 Meeker: What did you do with your friends for entertainment?

01-00:30:12 Bartholomew: I played the violin in high school and on weekends my violin friends came to my house because a friend could play the piano to accompany us. We would play. Yeah.

01-00:30:21 Meeker: What kind of music did you play?

01-00:30:23 Bartholomew: Classical.

01-00:30:24 Meeker: Classical. Do you remember your favorite composers?

01-00:30:28 Bartholomew: Vivaldi, or baroque pieces. Yeah. In fact, I stopped for forty years when I was working in the museum, so now I took it up again. Three years now, suffering and relearning everything.

01-00:30:44 Meeker: I bet. It’s probably a little more difficult with the fingers now.

01-00:30:47 Bartholomew: Yeah. Oh, and also we went out on picnics, walk in the hills. We didn’t play ballgames. That’s for boys. Oh, I was also a girl guide, which is like your Girl Scouts. So it’s a lot of camping and things like this. No, we had fun.

01-00:31:13 Meeker: There’s a rich culinary heritage in that part of the country. Did you learn to cook from your mother or—

01-00:31:21 Bartholomew: Never.

01-00:31:21 Meeker: Never?

01-00:31:21 Bartholomew: Yes, we had servants.

01-00:31:22 Meeker: Oh, you did?

01-00:31:23 Bartholomew: And the servants chased you out of the kitchen. But I did learn to make cookies and stuff because my mother was good at baking cakes and things. But she would teach the servants and the servants would do it. One servant just memorize all the recipes in her head because she couldn’t write.

01-00:31:43 Meeker: So there was no time that your mother would cook? Not around lunar New Year or anything like that?

01-00:31:49 Bartholomew: No. No. She was too busy correcting papers all the time and having babies.

01-00:31:56 Meeker: Yeah, you’re right. There were ten kids.

01-00:31:57 Bartholomew: Can you imagine ten kids in thirteen years. That’s horrifying to think of.

01-00:32:01 Meeker: And she was teaching.

01-00:32:01 Bartholomew: And she was teaching. So my mother was always busy correcting papers and correcting our homework and things like this.

01-00:32:09 Meeker: What holidays did you celebrate in your household?

01-00:32:11 Bartholomew: Christmas. That’s it. Christmas and Chinese New Year. Easter you were given Easter eggs and sometimes we have an Easter egg hunt. That’s it. No Thanksgiving. Chinese New Year, New Year’s Eve was like Thanksgiving. Oh, we celebrate August. No, September. The moon festival and each of us would be given a lantern, we lit the candle in it, and we would walk around the garden singing songs.

01-00:32:43 Meeker: So is that a festival that’s like a harvest festival?

01-00:32:47 Bartholomew: Yes, definitely a harvest festival.

01-00:32:51 Meeker: Well, let’s talk a little bit about your move to the United States to go to college. You came to California in 1962 to enroll at Holy Names College in Oakland. I guess you would have been eighteen or nineteen at that point in time.

01-00:33:12 Bartholomew: I was nineteen. Actually, I entered school in the spring semester. I didn’t come in September because I was not too well in Hong Kong so I missed going to university. But my cousin got into a horrible accident in Oakland the third day she landed and she ended up in Highland Hospital. So her mother and my mother came over to visit her because her father died and my aunt was falling to pieces. But she was very rich, so she paid for my mother to accompany her.

01-00:33:48 Meeker: Was it like a car accident or something?

01-00:33:50 Bartholomew: Yes. It was a boy from Michigan, taking them sightseeing and missed a stop sign in Oakland downtown. Crashed into a truck. It was the most horrible accident and she was laid up for like a year. And so my—

01-00:34:06 Meeker: Were you close with her?

01-00:34:07 Bartholomew: Yes. Yeah, because she was my age. And my mother took the opportunity to collect I-20 forms from three universities and I don’t know how she did it. She went and talked to three headmistresses and said, “I have a daughter of college age,” and the nuns quickly gave her an I-20.

01-00:34:28 Meeker: So it would have been—

01-00:34:29 Bartholomew: I-20 is the form that you would take to the consulate.

01-00:34:32 Meeker: Okay, all right.

01-00:34:33 Bartholomew: Yeah, so it’s called I-20 form.

01-00:34:35 Meeker: And I’m guessing it probably would have been, what, Holy Names and Saint Mary’s and Notre Dame or something like that?

01-00:34:41 Bartholomew: Holy Names, Dominican, and San Francisco College for Women. That was Catholic. It’s gone now.

01-00:34:46 Meeker: Okay. It’s probably folded into USF.

01-00:34:47 Bartholomew: Yeah, yeah. And I wanted to go to Oakland College of Arts and Crafts.

01-00:34:53 Meeker: Oh, really?

01-00:34:54 Bartholomew: And my mother went there and saw all these—not hippies but beatniks and all of them smoking cigarettes. Not pot in those days. Smoking on the grass. She said, “Oh, no, my daughter isn’t going there.”

01-00:35:06 Meeker: How did you know about that college?

01-00:35:08 Bartholomew: I always knew that I wanted to study art, so I’d been looking up all the different art schools, so I heard about that.

01-00:35:15 Meeker: So I imagine there would have been catalogues or something like that at Maryknoll—

01-00:35:19 Bartholomew: Some.

01-00:35:20 Meeker: —that listed the colleges in California?

01-00:35:22 Bartholomew: But only Catholic colleges. I don’t know how I heard about [the California College of] Arts and Crafts. So meanwhile I started looking up all these colleges where my mother had I-20 forms, and Dominican was out of the question.

01-00:35:33 Meeker: Why?

01-00:35:33 Bartholomew: It’s over on the other side of the Golden Gate. How can you come to San Francisco if you don’t drive? And then I looked up College for Women and I was horrified. You had to wear high heels to classes every day. I said, “Why? I didn’t come over to suffer.” Because in Hong Kong, we are from a middle class family but you’re supposed to dress well and girls my age, as a teenager, would wear high heels and look very pretty and I thought that was not my way

of life. So I rebelled. So I wasn’t going to do the same thing in America. So I agreed to go to Holy Names because the girls could wear bobby socks and sneakers, and that was fine with me.

01-00:36:18 Meeker: Where was Holy Names located exactly?

01-00:36:21 Bartholomew: Mountain Boulevard. You know the Mormon temple? So it was between the Mormon Temple and Mills College. It’s up on the hills.

01-00:36:27 Meeker: It’s still there, correct?

01-00:36:29 Bartholomew: Yeah. Oh, yeah. You can see the bell tower. It’s quite nice. Yeah. I really enjoyed it.

01-00:36:37 Meeker: Can you describe the experience at Holy Names versus maybe—

01-00:36:42 Bartholomew: UCLA?

01-00:36:43 Meeker: Well, or your experience at Maryknoll in Hong Kong.

01-00:36:48 Bartholomew: It wasn’t too much of a culture shock. There were three or four Chinese girls there, so that was fine. And it was very nice. People were extremely friendly. The nuns were nice, the girls were nice, and I really enjoyed it. But I only had two and a half years of college. In Hong Kong we have grade thirteen, which you don’t have here. So I have enough credits, because I have a lot of history and English literature. So I skipped English 1A. I skipped all those basic things, which I should have taken. And before I knew it I was a high sophomore, which means after one semester you have to declare your major. And I looked at the catalogue. And the only way to get out of here is to take art. Otherwise if you become a science major, which I couldn’t anyway because I flunked all my math, I would have to make up a lot of courses. So art was the only option. All my Chinese classmates took lab technology. It was very acceptable by Hong Kong parents that your kids studied lab technology. That was very good.

01-00:38:03 Meeker: What kind of career would that have led to?

01-00:38:06 Bartholomew: Blood and urine. Every—

01-00:38:08 Meeker: Okay. So like being a phlebotomist or something like that?

01-00:38:11 Bartholomew: Yes, exactly. I mean, I wasn’t thinking of blood and urine but that’s not for me. So my mother was very understanding. She knew me. So, “This is your life. Whatever you have chosen, you have to like it for the rest of your life. So just study what you want.” So I studied art. But the thing is nobody would send their kids to America to study art. That’s a no no, unless there’s something wrong with you mentally that you are allowed to study art. So my mother would lie her way through. I didn’t know what she told her friends what I was studying. But no. You can’t tell people that your daughter is studying art.

So I had fun. I took everything. Weaving, bookbinding, ceramics, printmaking. I liked printmaking very much. So I decided I would go to UCLA to become a printmaker.

01-00:39:07 Meeker: I want to hear a little bit more about your college experience at Holy Names. So it sounds like you came in having had a really extensive high school education that included probably a lot more in-depth study perhaps than some of your American students. And I don’t know if they had a foreign language requirement at that point in time.

01-00:39:38 Bartholomew: Yes, they did. I used Chinese. That was so bad of me. Which means I never learned any languages. So I used my Chinese as my foreign language.

01-00:39:50 Meeker: Who were your friends? You said that there were a few other Chinese students. Did you have a broader group of friends?

01-00:39:58 Bartholomew: Yeah. Friends from the orchestra. But unfortunately I did not come in as a freshman, so I didn’t have a whole gang of people from the same year. And especially coming in in the middle of a semester, I didn’t have any friends among my year. So that’s a pity. Also we couldn’t afford to stay in the dormitory. So the nuns approved of our apartment. It was four Chinese girls sharing an apartment, and we took the bus to school. So I really missed out on college life. I didn’t know what it was like to live in the dormitory.

01-00:40:34 Meeker: Did you become close then with your roommates?

01-00:40:36 Bartholomew: Oh, yeah. I have one sister and two roommates, yeah.

01-00:40:40 Meeker: I’m sorry, one sister of yours?

01-00:40:42 Bartholomew: Yeah, by that time. Mm-hmm.

01-00:40:43 Meeker: Oh, okay. Where was the apartment?

01-00:40:50 Bartholomew: That was near Diamond Avenue in Fruitvale and MacArthur. It’s a bad district now but in the old days it was so nice. It was quite nice. And I went inside Diamond Park to sketch and make etchings inside there. Yeah.

01-00:41:04 Meeker: Do you ever go by the place that you lived? Is it still there?

01-00:41:06 Bartholomew: No. It’s still there but no. No, it’s not safe. Right. Macarthur and Fruitvale. Yeah.

01-00:41:12 Meeker: Oh, yeah, you’re right.

01-00:41:15 Bartholomew: But it was fine in my days. But I was given a very good art history education at Holy Names.

01-00:41:23 Meeker: Do you remember any of your professors?

01-00:41:26 Bartholomew: Mm-hmm, yes. Sister Miriam Josephine and she was very proud of me. And once in a while she would come to de Young Museum when we were next to—de Young in Golden Gate Park and she would come and look for me all the time.

01-00:41:37 Meeker: Wow.

01-00:41:38 Bartholomew: Yeah. I gave her tours.

01-00:41:41 Meeker: So what was the kind of art education? Was it art history, was it art appreciation or was it actually art production or maybe all three?

01-00:41:51 Bartholomew: No art appreciation. Mainly art history. Art 1A, 1B, which covers Neolithic to modern art. And then we have architecture. It covered all European art but not Oriental art. And then we have studio, which I took weaving and ceramics and all those, and painting and drawing and the teachers were very good. They really tried to teach you everything from basics. But instead of having a portfolio of four years, I only have two years. So it wasn’t good enough to enter UCLA’s art department. But at that time my father also said, “You are the oldest of ten kids. You cannot become an artist. You can’t support your

family that way.” It was true because I didn’t have the personality to push my art. I still don’t.

01-00:42:49 Meeker: To show in galleries then?

01-00:42:51 Bartholomew: No, I can’t do it. So I switched to art history totally because I already have those classes at Holy Names.

01-00:43:00 Meeker: And with the idea that if you get a degree in art history you can teach?

01-00:43:04 Bartholomew: Yeah, teach or work in a museum. I knew at the very beginning that I didn’t want to teach. I was very shy in those days. So I was always thinking that I want to work in a museum. I want to touch the arts. That would be fun. So the opportunity came during my last year of graduate school and there was a notice on the bulletin board saying that there’s a training program in de Young Museum. So I wrote to them and say that I have a background in Chinese art. And I didn’t know that de Young Museum’s curator went over to the Brundage and showed my letter to the boss, d’Argencé, the Frenchman, and he said, “Okay, we’ll take her.” The de Young Museum’s curator actually said, “Okay, you take her, you pay for her.” So it’s only later on that I discovered all these things.

01-00:43:53 Meeker: Well, let’s get to that in a little bit. I still want to get a little more about your education. But actually I’m thinking, going back to your education in Hong Kong, I imagine you would have been exposed to Western European art. No.

01-00:44:11 Bartholomew: None.

01-00:44:12 Meeker: None. So you were not familiar with the Rembrandts and Picassos and Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci?

01-00:44:20 Bartholomew: Except we began to have clubs in Maryknoll school and one was on art appreciation. And I remember the nuns showing us about [Jean-Francois] Millet and The Gleaners.

01-00:44:32 Meeker: I’m sorry, the—

01-00:44:33 Bartholomew: The Gleaners, where everybody bend down. You know, it’s a field, and people bending down to pick things up. It’s called The Gleaners. So I remembered being exposed to something like that. But in Hong Kong I have a

very good music education, not from my school but because of my friends. So I already heard many, many records and I listened to classical music on the radio and attended concerts. So by the time I came over to Holy Names and took music appreciation, I got straight As. Because I already know it.

01-00:45:08 Meeker: Had you been exposed to more contemporary composition at that point in time? I’m thinking like Ravel or Bartók or something like that?

01-00:45:16 Bartholomew: No.

01-00:45:17 Meeker: No?

01-00:45:18 Bartholomew: No. I did like Bartók’s Romanian dances, though. Violin. I heard that in Hong Kong. But I mainly found myself liking the classical period and romantic period and Baroque. So no, I have nothing to complain about my education in Hong Kong. We had a very good education.

01-00:45:37 Meeker: It sounds like it. And so then when you’re at Holy Names, the art history you’re learning, it sounds like it was mostly European art. What did you think of that after learning a bit about art primarily through your grandfather, and Chinese art?

01-00:46:00 Bartholomew: I liked it. Yeah.

01-00:46:02 Meeker: They’re quite different in many substantial ways.

01-00:46:04 Bartholomew: Very different.

01-00:46:06 Meeker: What did you think of western art when you first—

01-00:46:08 Bartholomew: I like it very much. Also, it’s very easy to get an A in art history because of the way we were taught in Hong Kong. Everything is memorized. Art history is straight memorization. There’s not anything analytical about it.

01-00:46:25 Meeker: Meaning? What are you memorizing in art history?

01-00:46:28 Bartholomew: They show you a slide. Okay. Who was the painter and the date, name of the piece. Then you get an A.

01-00:46:36 Meeker: So there was no real analysis of what the symbolism is or different interpretations of what the artist might have intended?

01-00:46:44 Bartholomew: The symbolism came when I was at UCLA. Yeah. Because I had only beginning classes of art history.

01-00:46:50 Meeker: So as an undergraduate it was just identification, being able to maybe differentiate between The Gleaners and the, I don’t know, Vermeer or something like that, right, which would have been quite different.

01-00:47:10 Bartholomew: Yeah, we learn all the world masterpieces. We learn all that in art 1A and 1B. So that was good.

01-00:47:18 Meeker: Did you ever start to develop your own critical sense during this period of time that went beyond simple identification and maybe recognizing that certain kinds of art generated an emotional response, whereas maybe others didn’t?

01-00:47:36 Bartholomew: Yeah. I didn’t care too much for Picasso. I liked some of the French impressionists but not all of them. Yeah.

01-00:47:48 Meeker: I’m wondering why that was? Why was it that Picasso wasn’t your cup of tea and then some French impressionists were more interesting than others?

01-00:47:59 Bartholomew: I think I like more realistic types of paintings. I didn’t like the abstract type of art.

01-00:48:08 Meeker: Well, and if you’re being educated in the early sixties, this is after the explosion of American abstract impressionism with Jackson Pollock and then moving into the Warhol era of pop art and everything, which is quite distant from the formalism of representational painting.

01-00:48:38 Bartholomew: I remember at Holy Names the teacher made us come over to see op-art, optical art and I came home with a horrible migraine headache because of all those dots and stuff. I said, “This won’t do. I’m not going to study such things.”

01-00:48:53 Meeker: Was there a show that you went to?

01-00:48:55 Bartholomew: Yes. We went to the Museum of Modern Art to see this. No, we were told to see all kinds of exhibitions.

01-00:49:03 Meeker: There’s a tendency of people to see abstract expressionism, particularly like Jackson Pollack, the response often is, “Well, my twelve year old could do that.”

01-00:49:15 Bartholomew: Yeah, no, I didn’t like that either.

01-00:49:18 Meeker: I’m wondering where your sense of art appreciation comes from and thinking about your grandfather teaching you about the craft of calligraphy and—

01-00:49:36 Bartholomew: Exactly. It’s mainly like fine quality, good workmanship. That’s where I came from. So you show me all these splashes of colors, it’s just the very opposite of what I learned. Yeah. In Hong Kong we were taught how to appreciate things of fine quality. So that’s why.

01-00:50:08 Meeker: Interesting. All right. It sounded like you were more interested, I guess, in art practice as an undergraduate than art history. What particular kinds of art practice were you most interested in pursuing?

01-00:50:31 Bartholomew: Drawing and doing etchings. Printmaking. Woodcuts. I liked those very much. But when I switched over to art history I took a variety of classes. I took Japanese art. Had a very good professor. It depends on the professor. If you get a good one, even though it’s something strange, you just learn to like it. She was so good at explaining things to us. But at that time I wanted to major in Egyptian art. I was always fascinated by mummies and stuff, except this teacher, Egyptian teacher, he looked like a dried up old mummy and he was so strict. And in his class, it’s like Hong Kong. You sit there and you cannot ask questions. And he was extremely fierce. So I said, “Oh, forget it.” Also, he didn’t teach us to appreciate Egyptian art. We memorized and drew mortuary temple plants. I still remember the pyramid with a trapdoor here and things like this. And the examination was, “Write all you know about Egyptian sculptures.” So you draw all of them out. Luckily I could draw. There were other people who could not draw. I also drew mortuary plans, and have to remember how many pillars were there. I said, “What kind of art history is this?” No way. I cannot study like that.

01-00:51:55 Meeker: He was almost more of an architect or an engineer than he was an artist.

01-00:51:59 Bartholomew: So years later I was alone with him in the elevator in the art department. He says, “Why didn’t you continue?” [laughter] I didn’t know what to say.

01-00:52:07 Meeker: Why didn’t you continue, because he thought you were talented.

01-00:52:11 Bartholomew: Who knows? He just thought I was a good student, I could draw.

01-00:52:15 Meeker: And this was at UCLA?

01-00:52:16 Bartholomew: Mm-hmm.

01-00:52:17 Meeker: Interesting. Just one more question about Holy Names. Was there any education about non-Western art in that program?

01-00:52:25 Bartholomew: I think they got somebody from Chinatown to come over and teach us Chinese art and that person didn’t know anything. But it was fun anyway. And he was horrified to find me there. In fact, he came and talked to me about it because he thought probably I knew more than he did, which wasn’t true.

01-00:52:45 Meeker: The person who came over to teach?

01-00:52:46 Bartholomew: Yes. He wasn’t expecting to see Chinese students there. [laughter] It was so funny. We had fun.

01-00:52:56 Meeker: Interesting.

01-00:52:57 Bartholomew: Yeah, we learned something about Chinese culture.

01-00:52:59 Meeker: So when you’re looking to places to go to grad school—why did you decide you wanted to go to grad school anyway?

01-00:53:10 Bartholomew: In those days, after graduation, you either get married or you go to grad school. Because as a foreign student you have to go back home once you’re through. So I want to continue anyway because I felt I didn’t know anything after two and a half years of college. So I wanted to continue. I applied to several places, Mills College, and every place rejected me except UCLA.

01-00:53:41 Meeker: Oh, okay. So you did look at other?

01-00:53:42 Bartholomew: Yeah. My portfolio was not good enough because, it was two years versus four years.

01-00:53:51 Meeker: Thinking of the other option, of marriage, had you been dating when you were at Holy Names or—

01-00:53:57 Bartholomew: No, none. Somehow I was very career minded and I didn’t want to be bothered by boys. Also, the boys in America are very dangerous. You cannot be friends with them. If you go out with them, that’s it. You are their girlfriend, and I wasn’t about to be anybody’s girlfriend. No. Somehow all seven of us, mostly, we were very career minded. Marriage came later.

01-00:54:28 Meeker: What did your sisters end up doing then? Did they all come to the United States?

01-00:54:32 Bartholomew: Yes. My second sister got married right away and she regretted it. And the third sister got married after graduate school. Yeah.

01-00:54:46 Meeker: Did they go into more scientific pursuits?

01-00:54:50 Bartholomew: Second sister went to art history and ending up dealing in art. Third sister went into science, biological sciences. And then the other four, two went to law school and two became bankers.

01-00:55:07 Meeker: Okay. What about your brothers?

01-00:55:09 Bartholomew: The brothers, the first one got his PhD in environmental horticulture at Davis and he went back, took care of the farm. The second one studied engineering and went back to work for Mobil Gasoline and the third brother went back and he had a degree in business ed, worked for my very rich uncle, Stanley Ho.

01-00:55:36 Meeker: Any of your sisters go back?

01-00:55:39 Bartholomew: None.

01-00:55:40 Meeker: None. So all of the boys went back and none of the girls.

01-00:55:42 Bartholomew: All the boys went back.

Audio File 2

02-00:00:11 Meeker: This is Martin Meeker interviewing Terese Bartholomew. It’s tape number two. As you had just said, you graduated from Holy Names and you were interested in continuing education and so you were accepted to the program at UCLA in art history. Tell me a little bit about the program, some of the professors you worked with. You had mentioned this one.

02-00:00:43 Bartholomew: The Egyptian teacher, right.

02-00:00:43 Meeker: The Egyptian teacher, yeah.

02-00:00:44 Bartholomew: So he scared me to death. That was the end of Egyptian art. But I also studied European art and also Renaissance art.

02-00:00:52 Meeker: I wonder, what was it about Egyptian art? It seems to me that Egyptian art is in some ways a predecessor to both Eastern and Western art in some ways, although probably it’s a tenuous connection to both of them.

02-00:01:11 Bartholomew: The ideas of mummy, of mummification and all those things, that fascinated me. And also, Egyptian art is very beautiful and they have a very rich mythology. All these gods and stuff. But when it came to selecting a major, there’s only one thing. It’s language. I knew Chinese. I don’t know French or German or anything else. So you got to pass one of them. So I chose Chinese again, which means I majored in Chinese art.

02-00:01:41 Meeker: I see. So you couldn’t, say, major in French art or Italian art because you would need to know those languages. Did you ever take any classes in European languages just for basic comprehension or—

02-00:01:57 Bartholomew: No. I tried Japanese art just for fun. No. I mean Japanese language. But I find that it’s easier for me to imitate the sounds of Oriental language than European. I can speak some Japanese, a few things in Korean. I know some Tibetan. That came easily to me. But to study the grammar and really do it seriously, I had no interest.

02-00:02:27 Meeker: Okay. Well, what about the education in Chinese art at UCLA?

02-00:02:35 Bartholomew: It was good.

02-00:02:35 Meeker: Did they have good faculty who—

02-00:02:37 Bartholomew: Just one professor, LeRoy Davidson. He was a bronze specialist, in Chinese bronzes. So that’s what he taught us mainly. And also Indian art, which was perfect because these two things helped me in my career. But what was important was a teacher in Northern Renaissance Art. So I remembered the course was very boring. It’s all about all these scenes of Madonna and Child. But then he started talking about the child holding a cherry, the saint holding a lily and the meaning. So I thought that was fascinating. So I went into the library and I asked the librarian. I said, “Are there any books on Chinese symbolisms?” because I was telling him about the Northern Renaissance iconography. He said, “Sure, but it’s in Japanese.” So he showed me this wonderful book, all Chinese illustrations, and the text is half in Japanese, half in Chinese, because in those days, classical Japanese also use Chinese characters. So he said, “There’s enough in here for you to understand.”

02-00:03:41 Meeker: What do you mean by half characters? I don’t understand what—

02-00:03:43 Bartholomew: You know Japanese characters? They have ka, ki, ku, ke, ko. This is the alphabet. So if you look at an eighteenth century Japanese text, half the characters are in Chinese. And in between there are some of these curlicue things. They have their own hiragana script.

02-00:04:11 Meeker: So in other words, a portion of Japanese language came from Chinese?

02-00:04:18 Bartholomew: Yeah. Any technical thing they’re in Chinese. So the book on iconography was mainly Chinese characters. And there’s enough in there for me to understand. So it really opened my eye.

02-00:04:34 Meeker: Do you remember the name of the book?

02-00:04:36 Bartholomew: It’s very long. We have it in our library. It’s like Chinese Auspicious Motifs. Yeah. And when I came to work in the Asian Art Museum, I told the librarian, I said, “You have to have this.” And also at that time I started noticing the labels. Not just my museum, but other museums. They only say plate, bowl, Qing Dynasty, and the type of glaze used. I said, “How about that? What’s the meaning of that?” And the curator said, “I don’t know.” I said, “I know.” So I thought, “Okay, if you guys don’t know it, I’m going to study it.” And also, I probably talked to you last time about how I was told to become the Indian curator but to carry on my Chinese work and that didn’t go over too well because people were very jealous of their territory. So I had no intention of fighting with people, that’s my philosophy in life. I said, “Okay. I’ll just study

something you guys cannot study,” which is Chinese symbols because you have to know the language. All these are puns. They all represent a four character phrase. If you don’t know Chinese, there’s no way you can understand it. Because you have to understand the phrase and understand how the images were used as puns because they’re similar sounding, different characters, but close in sound to the ones in the four letter phrase.

02-00:06:06 Meeker: So that way the artist could say two things at once.

02-00:06:11 Bartholomew: Or just say one thing. Say one thing but using different objects to show it. And I spent a lot of time walking up and down the aisles of the museum’s storage. That’s why I know the collection so well. Collecting all these things. Sometimes I collected a whole bunch of objects, I don’t know what they mean. Sometimes I read from books all these four-character phrases but I don’t know what the images represent. So my job is to put them together. But the Japanese book helped me a lot because the basics are there.

02-00:06:42 Meeker: Do you remember the author’s name?

02-00:06:43 Bartholomew: The author’s name. Let me go get it. [break in recording] Nozaki Nobuchika. So that’s the name. That’s the title. Kisshō zuan kaidai: Shina fuzoku no ichi kenkyū. So this man was a merchant in China and this was in 1928. So he printed this book for his own countrymen to understand Chinese motifs. And the Chinese never bothered to do this because it’s popular culture. It’s beneath the dignity of a scholar to write something about popular culture.

02-00:07:23 Meeker: Why was that popular culture?

02-00:07:25 Bartholomew: This is something you live with. You’re supposed to know it. Yeah. So it’s everywhere. You live with all these lucky sayings all the time and you wear them, you have them on the furniture, you have them on your porcelain. So you’re supposed to know them. So nobody else bothered to write them down except this Japanese. In fact, that’s the only book I used until this book was translated into Chinese, so I knew more about it. Because I miss a lot by not knowing the Japanese part.

02-00:07:57 Meeker: I guess before you read this book, or when you read this book, did you realize that you already knew a lot of the motifs that were used on Chinese art?

02-00:08:11 Bartholomew: No. I know basic ones only. Like I know the peach stands for longevity. I mean things that we learned in Hong Kong and all kinds of New Year motifs.

02-00:08:24 Meeker: But, again, these are things that there was a presumption that you would have known just through your own experience.

02-00:08:35 Bartholomew: It’s a reminder that you actually know these things. It’s like when I give a talk to a Chinese audience and the minute I say those characters, you can see them smiling. They understood. But we just show the motif and they may not know it.

02-00:08:50 Meeker: Well, there’s also a way which people maybe understand a motif. But unless it’s pointed out to them, it’s not clear. A painting, for example: Western art that has like storm clouds in the distance, that’s symbolic perhaps of the arrival—

02-00:09:13 Bartholomew: The gathering storm.

02-00:09:16 Meeker: Yeah, the gathering storm or a sunrise or something along those lines. Maybe the more esoteric ones that you were talking about. The holding of a cherry by Baby Jesus or lily is maybe a little more understood but not so well understood. Did your grandfather instruct you in motifs or symbolism at all?

02-00:09:40 Bartholomew: No. No. Just on painting, on how to hold a brush, how to paint bamboo, the basic chrysanthemums, plum, and pine.

02-00:09:51 Meeker: But he didn’t really teach you the meaning behind the chrysanthemum or plum?

02-00:09:56 Bartholomew: No, he did not. But we did memorize one essay that was written maybe 500 AD. The love of the lotus. So it talked about such and such people liked the peony because of prosperity. “But for me,” the writer says, “I like the lotus because it came up from the mud but remains unstained.” So these things stayed with me. So you know the meaning from just this famous essay that we all memorized as children.

02-00:10:35 Meeker: Interesting.

02-00:10:34 Bartholomew: I memorized that in the third grade. I can still say it.

02-00:10:43 Meeker: What was it like working with Professor Davidson at UCLA? And by that, I actually kind of mean what did he think of you? Did he have many other

students who were Chinese, who knew the language, who maybe had a different lifelong engagement with some forms of Chinese art?

02-00:11:10 Bartholomew: He did not have too many girl students. Also, he belonged to the people of the sixties. The same type of mentality as my father-in-law, who was a famous professor at UCLA. That “don’t waste time on the girls, they get married anyway” [mentality]. So that was exactly his philosophy. He gave all of the scholarships to the boys, and some undeserving boys. So it was really unfair. And I tried to get scholarships. But he didn’t give it to me until he really get to know me, to know that I’m a hardworking student. Then he finally, the last year, he got me a scholarship. It was good because for the whole summer I was up here in San Francisco and I had to go back to write my thesis. So my school fees were $500, so he got me a scholarship for $500. So that paid for my—my last quarter at UCLA.

02-00:12:05 Meeker: The tuition, thesis, okay.

02-00:12:08 Bartholomew: So I only spent two months at UCLA because by November I was working. So that was a big help.

02-00:12:15 Meeker: You said that one of the reasons that you came to the United States was that you could work through school here. Were you working while you were at Holy Names?

02-00:12:23 Bartholomew: Only during summer. But at UCLA I really had to work, because by that time I paid for my own school fees. I had five jobs.

02-00:12:33 Meeker: Wow. Tell me your five jobs.

02-00:12:35 Bartholomew: It was unbelievable. Working in the library shelving books. Working as an usher. And that was not too often. Every time the main school hall had a play, I would go there and usher. And I did some research for a professor. That was fun. I really enjoyed that. And I mounted paintings, something I learned while I was at UCLA.

02-00:13:02 Meeker: Was that for like a framing company in the area or—

02-00:13:04 Bartholomew: No, just individual for different people. Because when Chinese and Japanese paint, the paper is a very thin paper and it has to be backed and mounted as a hanging scroll. I learned how to do that but that was hard. And I was waiting at tables, library, doing that. Yeah, five jobs. And it kept me busy, so no time

for boys. There were boys trying to date me. I said, “Goodbye, don’t bother me.” [laughter] Just absolutely no time.

02-00:13:32 Meeker: Well, five jobs and grad school is a hard combination.

02-00:13:36 Bartholomew: The worst thing was working the library and seeing my classmates studying. And I was panicking. But there was one thing I learned, how to study in a very short time, how to concentrate.

02-00:13:46 Meeker: How did you do this? What did you learn? What are the secrets?

02-00:13:51 Bartholomew: Total concentration. Because you have only one hour to learn all these things. And this helped a lot working in the museum because my office door is always open. I’ll be writing inside. I don’t care what the hell was going on outside, I can still write. So that’s what I learned from my five jobs. Yeah.

02-00:14:13 Meeker: So it’s interesting. It sounds like this Professor Davidson didn’t take you seriously—

02-00:14:18 Bartholomew: No.

02-00:14:19 Meeker: —because you were a woman and he thought that you wouldn’t go into a career in this field.

02-00:14:25 Bartholomew: But when I was going to go into my career, he wrote me a good letter of recommendation, so that was a help.

02-00:14:32 Meeker: Did he take any interest in your thesis? What were you writing on for your thesis?

02-00:14:38 Bartholomew: I wanted to write on this [pointing to the book on symbols in Chinese art] and he said, “Absolutely not,” because he didn’t know anything about it.

02-00:14:44 Meeker: Or did he also have the same prejudice against it, that it was pop culture as opposed to fine arts?

02-00:14:50 Bartholomew: No. It’s just that he only knew Chinese bronzes. So he said, “If you want to graduate you write on Chinese bronzes.” So I said, “Okay.”

02-00:14:57 Meeker: So what did you write on?

02-00:14:59 Bartholomew: The dating of Western Zhou bronzes. These were pieces excavated in China. So my job was to date it precisely. So it was fun.

02-00:15:12 Meeker: So was the thesis, was it a narrative thesis, or was it talking about specific pieces of artwork kind of as a topic?

02-00:15:21 Bartholomew: Specific. Specific and applying what I learned in America to it, and stylistic analysis. If you don’t know Chinese you can’t write this kind of thesis because you have to read all the excavation reports from China. And I remember there was a famous Professor Rudolph. He kept all these books in his office, so the librarian had to go and get those books back for me just for several hours. I Xeroxed them. But I did it and it went well.

02-00:15:54 Meeker: This does bring up the question of, gosh, it seems, I don’t want to say peculiar. For instance, I know some of my colleagues who studied American history but who did it at Cambridge. And it seems a little peculiar. Why study American history in Cambridge? Or you go to UCLA to study French history. Why not go to the Sorbonne?

02-00:16:23 Bartholomew: Because in Hong Kong there’s no art history in my days. Very simple.

02-00:16:27 Meeker: Okay, yeah. So actually to study Chinese art history you would have had to go either to Europe or the United States.

02-00:16:35 Bartholomew: Or China, which was under Communist rule. You don’t want to go in there. So it was fun because—

02-00:16:46 Meeker: Do you think that there was any particular insight or contribution that was made by the Western approach to studying art to the circumstance of Chinese art?

02-00:17:10 Bartholomew: You see things the Western way. So you learn to see things both ways, as a Chinese and as a Westerner.

02-00:17:17 Meeker: Can you describe those differences?

02-00:17:22 Bartholomew: I guess in painting. When the Chinese look at the painting, they would say, “Ah, this is a certain landscape of this area,” so they know where it is and know the history behind it. But a Westerner would look at the composition and the Chinese would never look at that.

02-00:17:43 Meeker: Composition meaning?

02-00:17:44 Bartholomew: Of how the painting is composed. Okay. You look at the landscape in a bird’s eye view, because in the real landscape you really don’t see things like this. The Chinese would never explain bird’s eye view to you. That’s the way it’s supposed to be. [laughter]

02-00:17:58 Meeker: Oh, interesting.

02-00:17:59 Bartholomew: So it’s very different. And the Chinese would go into ecstasy over the little brush strokes and things, which you don’t learn from your Western professor. And, of course, the symbolism in there. Chinese would emphasize those. Westerner won’t even know about it. For example, I saw a painting of Zhongkui, the demon queller. It’s a man with a bushy beard. He is sitting and on the table there are pomegranate blossoms, there’s artemisia. There’s also acorus, all kinds of things. I read the label. It was a very nice label. It talked about who the artist was and the subject matter is demon queller and that’s it. But what is this? This is a painting of the 5th of May. This is the day when this painting had to be hung in the house. It was this guy’s day. He was the guardian for the 5th of May. The Westerner did not know about this. And there’s specific meanings for every single flower behind him to do with that day. So that’s the difference. The Chinese, you know, I would say, know the hidden meaning of the painting. The Westerner look at it as a Western painting.

02-00:19:13 Meeker: So more in a formalistic sense, how pleasing the composition is to the eye, the use of color or something like that.

02-00:19:22 Bartholomew: Right. Use of color and things. And the Chinese, “What do you mean, use of color? These are all the colors you have.” [laughter]

02-00:19:28 Meeker: Oh, interesting. In your thesis, were you able to bring in any of your interest in motif or symbolism?

02-00:19:39 Bartholomew: Those motifs, I drew actually some of them, so I enjoyed drawing. But in those days we didn’t know the meaning. Like you’re dealing with fifth century BC. Actually, no, eighth century BC.

02-00:19:53 Meeker: So extraordinarily old. The symbolism motif would be unknown to you.

02-00:19:58 Bartholomew: Right. But I just did it just to graduate because I have a job waiting for me.

02-00:20:05 Meeker: Well, I know that you did work on one publication with Davidson. Is that correct?

02-00:20:10 Bartholomew: Mm-hmm. That was very useful.

02-00:20:12 Meeker: What was that?

02-00:20:13 Bartholomew: It was the first Indian sculpture show in Los Angeles and he advised many of the local collectors, so he could gather together a very nice stone sculpture exhibition. And for us it was an eye-opener because these were not masterpieces. And to find out what they are you have to go through many books. So he made us do basic research and told us turning pages is good for your soul. That’s why we turned pages until you find something looking like that. And we learned to write catalog entries, which was exactly what I had to do in the museum later on. So I already knew how to do it. So during my training program I was the only one working for the Brundage and every day my boss would tell me to go to inside storage, choose a piece, and go study it and write about it. So I did.

02-00:21:08 Meeker: And so that was very similar to what you had done for Davidson for his Indian art project.

02-00:21:12 Bartholomew: Right, yeah. So at the end, the Chinese curator left to get married and this job was offered to me.

02-00:21:20 Meeker: Well, let’s then in the next twenty minutes that we have before we have to leave, tell me a little bit about—you had mentioned that you saw this ad for a job with the de Young and that you decided to apply for it. What were they asking for?

02-00:21:40 Bartholomew: They just say training program for the summer.

02-00:21:42 Meeker: So it was more of an internship really?

02-00:21:44 Bartholomew: Internship. And I already knew if you don’t have any experience, you cannot find a job. So at least you go in the museum, just get your foot in there. And I was just very lucky.

02-00:21:57 Meeker: Were there many other jobs in Asian art in museums in the United States?

02-00:22:02 Bartholomew: No.

02-00:22:03 Meeker: None?

02-00:22:03 Bartholomew: None.

02-00:22:05 Meeker: So this was ’68. The Brundage collection had been open since ’66. Did you know anything about the Brundage collection at the de Young?

02-00:22:17 Bartholomew: My professor talked about that. So we knew such a place existed but I did not have the money to come up and take a look at it. Yeah.

02-00:22:25 Meeker: What did he talk about? Just that a magnificent new collection had opened or—

02-00:22:29 Bartholomew: Right. All kinds of bronzes which my teacher was interested in.

02-00:22:36 Meeker: Had he gone up and visited it?

02-00:22:37 Bartholomew: Yes. He came to the opening in ’68. No, ’66. And by that time, that was my first year in graduate school.

02-00:22:51 Meeker: Did you follow any of the newspaper reports about it?

02-00:22:55 Bartholomew: Not in Los Angeles. You really don’t know.

02-00:23:01 Meeker: Well, the LA County Museum of Art had some Asian art, yes, or—

02-00:23:07 Bartholomew: Yes, and they had also an opening. And I know I applied for it but I didn’t get it.

02-00:23:16 Meeker: And what was the opening for? An internship, as well, or—

02-00:23:18 Bartholomew: It was for an assistant curator.

02-00:23:23 Meeker: Okay. So when you applied for this internship, what is the interview process like?

02-00:23:28 Bartholomew: No. You just send letters of recommendation. So I had one from my conservation teacher and I had one from my major professor and I got it. It was fun.

02-00:23:43 Meeker: And it was just over the course of the summer?

02-00:23:44 Bartholomew: Yeah, and I had no money but I had an aunt. And I just call her up and said, “Can I stay with you? I have no money.” So she said yes.

02-00:23:53 Meeker: Where did she live?

02-00:23:53 Bartholomew: She lived in 22nd Avenue. One block from Geary. So I walked. I walked to work every morning, back and forth.

02-00:24:05 Meeker: Not too far from the museum.

02-00:24:07 Bartholomew: No.

02-00:24:07 Meeker: Which then obviously was in Golden Gate Park. Was this a paid position?

02-00:24:13 Bartholomew: It was like $300 for two months. [laughter] It’s ridiculous.

02-00:24:22 Meeker: So that paid for your flight up and back or something and bus trip or—

02-00:24:26 Bartholomew: Right. Yeah, the flight, that was like $25 in those days. And I think one of the trainees drove me back down because he was also from Los Angeles.

02-00:24:40 Meeker: That’s funny. So when you first arrived, this was the first time that you had seen the Brundage collection, yes?

02-00:24:48 Bartholomew: Mm-hmm.

02-00:24:48 Meeker: Did you know that you were applying for an internship specifically with the Brundage collection?

02-00:24:53 Bartholomew: No. I thought it was de Young. But I still had to work for the de Young Museum and what we did was just sit on the information desk and answer questions all day long. So all of us were like studying the de Young catalog, trying to memorize which room you can find this painting. And found that there were only three questions. Where is the tea garden? Where is the toilet? And where’s the mummy? All day long we answer these questions. [laughter]

02-00:25:25 Meeker: Oh, so the summer position, this was not the research curator position?

02-00:25:32 Bartholomew: No.

02-00:25:32 Meeker: Oh, okay. I didn’t know that.

02-00:25:35 Bartholomew: Yes, so we were sitting there to answer questions. But half of my time I was at the Brundage. So I was learning things and the other trainees were furious with me because they didn’t get to study anything.

02-00:25:49 Meeker: Okay. Were they interested in other kinds of art or—

02-00:25:49 Bartholomew: Yes.

02-00:25:53 Meeker: Yeah. They were interested in European art?

02-00:25:55 Bartholomew: Yeah.

02-00:25:56 Meeker: Well, the de Young had a decent collection of European art.

02-00:26:01 Bartholomew: And we were also told to help with exhibitions, so we did. So we learned about how to make labels and watch people putting up a show. So we did learn something from that side.

02-00:26:11 Meeker: It was a full-time forty hour a week situation.

02-00:26:15 Bartholomew: Yeah, and I spent half my time at the Brundage.

02-00:26:19 Meeker: One thing that’s interesting. Actually, I just read this in an interview my colleague did with Alice Lowe. And she was talking about that she became a docent very early on but the training program started well before the museum opened. And I think it was like a two year training program before the museum actually opened in 1966. And it’s this really great passage in the interview. She says, “The most remarkable thing about seeing the physical objects in person was their size,” because they had been studying photographs or slides of them and they were all the same size.

02-00:27:09 Bartholomew: Right.

02-00:27:09 Meeker: The jades were just as big as the massive Apsaras. So to actually see how small and the kind of detail work that went into the jades and then also to see some of the Indian or the Thai statutes and how large they were was shocking on both sides of the spectrum. To touch them and to see the dimensionality of them was impressive. What was your experience the first time that you went into the Brundage galleries?

02-00:27:46 Bartholomew: Was how little I knew.

02-00:27:48 Meeker: Really?

02-00:27:48 Bartholomew: You are faced with all these Indian gods and said, “Who are they?” I mean, I knew some from working on the catalog but there’s still so much I didn’t know and it was frightening. But I figured I’ll just study one at a time. That’s exactly what I did. I would study one god and the next day chose another god and in the process of studying I realized the headdresses are different, what they held in their hands are different. I started writing labels immediately for the galleries upstairs when I started to work as a curator. So I have long labels always in my gallery. And the docents loved me because I told them so much. In those days I was sorry for them because I taught them so many Sanskrit words, which really wasn’t necessary. Like the names of the different crowns. [laughter] And I was interested in things like rocks. How do you tell that this was from northwestern India, this was from south India? So I tell them things like this, the different rocks. And because of the rock itself, the carving is different. For granite, of course you can’t get such detailed carving but you know that this piece is from South India. And there are so many stories associated with these sculptures. And I told them all these stories so that they

can in turn, tell the public. So I gave them useful information that they could use. So I had a very good working relationship with the docents, even now.

02-00:29:16 Meeker: When you first went there, that summer, and you started to engage with the collection. So you started doing research right away—

02-00:29:27 Bartholomew: Right away.

02-00:29:28 Meeker: —on each of the pieces. How did you go about doing research? What was it that you did?

02-00:29:33 Bartholomew: Okay. So at that time Brundage was buying a lot and the chosen pieces—my boss wanted to have more research on them. So he gave me the elephant god. So I went to the library.

02-00:29:50 Meeker: Ganesha.

02-00:29:51 Bartholomew: Ganesha. First of all, you find out who Ganesha is and then find out which part of India it is from. What are the characters? How is this Ganesha different from the rest of the Ganesha? So that’s what I did. And write all the descriptions. And they want it in detail. The name of the position, the gesture of the hand. So I found all these out. So it was very detailed.

02-00:30:13 Meeker: You have to learn the descriptive language in order to write descriptions. So you learned like how the hand—

02-00:30:22 Bartholomew: Yeah.

02-00:30:23 Meeker: And there were different terms for each position the hand might be in?

02-00:30:28 Bartholomew: Yeah. And there are other catalogues that other people had written. So you look at their style and see how they do it. And the one I copied the most was Dr. Pratapaditya Pal, P-A-L. And he was the curator at LA County Museum. He wrote the most wonderful descriptions because he was Indian. He knew what he was talking about. So I learned from him.

02-00:30:51 Meeker: What did you like about his descriptions?

02-00:30:53 Bartholomew: It tells you a lot of Indian culture that you cannot find in other books. So it was good. I can’t find any specific examples.

02-00:31:03 Meeker: Well, is it because of the symbolism and the motif that he was able to draw out?

02-00:31:08 Bartholomew: And more.

02-00:31:09 Meeker: And more?

02-00:31:10 Bartholomew: Yeah. More about the religion part, something we don’t know. Like we have a big piece upstairs with two seated figures and a standing figure and you have huge rings on the side and he would talk about people carrying these out in processions. Now, how would I know? I’ve never been to that part of India or to see this type of sculpture. These are the things we don’t know.

02-00:31:37 Meeker: So the use of the rings would have been unknown until this.

02-00:31:41 Bartholomew: Right. But all I could tell was I know who the gods are, I could describe them properly. But the actual use, that you have to learn from somebody else. It was fun.

02-00:31:53 Meeker: Because so many of these pieces of art were part of temples or—

02-00:31:59 Bartholomew: Yeah. They are from temples.

02-00:32:01 Meeker: Yeah, but where in the temple and what role did they play in the temple? Were they prominently displayed or not so prominently displayed?

02-00:32:09 Bartholomew: Right. And these sculptures came from the outside. So the South Indian ones, there are rules. Ganesha should be at the doorway and Shiva, as a teacher, should be facing south. So these are the things I bring into the labels. It was really fun. I felt that I was learning so much. Every day you learn something new.

02-00:32:37 Meeker: I imagine there must have been conflicting information in some of these books. Scholarship is not always set and settled, right.

02-00:32:47 Bartholomew: Dating is the conflict.

02-00:32:50 Meeker: How did you manage conflicts in dating?

02-00:32:55 Bartholomew: Look at a whole bunch of them and come to your own conclusion. Use the word circa a lot, ca. No, this is what you do when you have a visiting scholar. You ask him to date for you. And whenever I come across something I don’t really know, I will write to all these people. Yeah.

End of Interview

Interview #2 April 4, 2013 Audio File 3

03-00:00:00 Meeker: Today is the 4th of April 2013. This is Martin Meeker interviewing Terese Bartholomew for the Asian Art Museum Oral History Project and this is tape number three. So we wrapped up last time talking about your Master of Arts in art history from UCLA and you had mentioned that—I guess it was the summer between your first and second year at UCLA—you came up to Asian, or you came up to the de Young rather.

03-00:00:40 Bartholomew: Actually, no, it’s my last year: sixty-eight.

03-00:00:43 Meeker: Sixty-eight. Okay. So I guess after two years at UCLA, then you came up to the de Young Museum. And can you remind me again of what kind of work that you did there.

03-00:00:58 Bartholomew: It was supposed to be a training program. So the trainees were shown the major pieces of the de Young Museum and we sat on the table facing the entranceway. But unfortunately nobody asked us where to find the masterpieces. They only asked about the mummy, the toilet, and the Japanese tea garden. But I was lucky because I was the only one sent over to the Brundage. Or did we talk about that already?

03-00:01:29 Meeker: We talked about it briefly but tell me about your experiences there.

03-00:01:34 Bartholomew: Apparently one of the commissioners paid for me, for the training program. And d’Argencé, my boss, had nothing better to do that summer. Because every day he would tell me go write on something, show me a piece, say, “Go write on it.” And I was not allowed to work from the photograph. I had to actually go inside storage, look at the real piece. So that was very good. He taught me from the very beginning.

03-00:01:59 Meeker: Were you working in the storage part of the museum or were you actually working with the items on display?

03-00:02:06 Bartholomew: I would go into the storage and take notes and then come out and type it up. Yeah, in those days we used typewriters.

03-00:02:15 Meeker: What kind of artwork were you looking at? Was it a particular era? Was it a particular national heritage?

03-00:02:22 Bartholomew: It was all Indian sculptures. Because at that time there were many Chinese curators, or many people in the Chinese field in the museum, but nobody in Indian art. So that was left alone. So I looked at Gandaran sculptures. There were like 280 and then the rest were tenth and eleventh century medieval sculptures from all over India. So that was when I started to learn like what kind of rocks belonged to which part of India. That’s very important.

03-00:02:58 Meeker: And when you were learning about identifying these particular pieces of artwork and you talked about art which obviously brings you into the question around geology, where were you finding your information? Was it in already understood art books, art history books, or were you actually having to do more multidisciplinary study into, for instance, the geology of India to try to figure out where these different kinds of rocks were from?

03-00:03:30 Bartholomew: Well, actually, from art history magazines I came across the article of geographic variations in the sculptures of India and they talk about—with this granite and the carving is very low relief. But even with schists you can really go into detail. So actually, if you take a look, okay, it’s granite, then it has to be from South India, because every area has a different rock. So that was a big help. This is what I told the docents so that they have more things to say to the public. And there are standard iconography books that luckily the library has. And I remember there are four volumes, green cover books. And I have to consult those every day. For example, you say, the God Vishnu. A whole book is on Vishnu. So you just go through it until you find the right one. The way he holds his attributes: the conch shell with the club, the discus. All these things. There’s slight variation. And that will give you a particular dating for that God.

03-00:04:40 Meeker: Later on, of course, the establishment of the library by Fred Cline at the museum becomes an important—

03-00:04:52 Bartholomew: It was already established. Fred was already there.

03-00:04:56 Meeker: Okay, so he was already there in 1968. Okay.

03-00:05:00 Bartholomew: Yeah. He was probably like two years before me. Most people came in ’66. And his aunt, Bea Haberl, was a curator in de Young Museum. And somehow she was very interested in Oriental art, especially Tibetan art. And she was able to buy the two Tucci volumes on Tibetan paintings, called Tibetan Tankas. And those were very important. When she purchased them, her own director got very mad at her for buying such books.

03-00:05:35 Meeker: Because they were so expensive or—?

03-00:05:37 Bartholomew: They were very expensive and had really nothing to do with European art. So we ended up with all the Oriental books from de Young Museum. They came over to us. And Brundage also had his own library. So it was very good. We had a very good foundation.

03-00:05:55 Meeker: So by the time that you got there in 1968 there was already a very substantial library?

03-00:05:59 Bartholomew: I don’t have to go anywhere else.

03-00:06:01 Meeker: Well, can you maybe give me a sense of the different key individuals who you engaged with at the Brundage collection when you arrived in ’68 and then when you become the curator? What is it, the Indian and Southeast Asian part in 1968. Maybe starting with d’Argencé?

03-00:06:27 Bartholomew: d’Argencé, and then I worked with Sylvia Shangraw.

03-00:06:30 Meeker: Can you tell me about her?

03-00:06:32 Bartholomew: Sylvia Shangraw was the wife of Clarence Shangraw. She was American Chinese. So she was the curator of Chinese paintings. Clarence Shangraw was senior curator of everything. But his field was also Chinese art. I worked with Yoshiko Kakudo, who’s the Japanese curator. Boy, that’s it.

03-00:07:00 Meeker: So it was a pretty small operation of—

03-00:07:01 Bartholomew: Very small.

03-00:07:02 Meeker: —curators. Were there conservators and preparators and—

03-00:07:08 Bartholomew: We have two conservators. Roger Broussal, and he came before ’66, when the collection was still in the Kress basement. He was already there. Roger was the head conservator. Alexis Pencovic was the assistant. Then we had David Smith, the registrar. And we may have two or three preparators, and that’s it.

03-00:07:41 Meeker: So for someone who doesn’t understand the job categories in a museum, I’m wondering if you can walk us through in general the different kinds of tasks that a curator does, a conservator, a preparatory, and what other key people might be involved in museum work.

03-00:08:01 Bartholomew: Well, the director like directs everything and the registrar would take care of the existing collection. But in those days they really had no idea of museum management. It was just one sheet of paper (a card) for each object. And whatever notes we had, we just attached to it with a staple.

03-00:08:25 Meeker: Were these kept in a file cabinet or something like that?

03-00:08:28 Bartholomew: Yeah, there was a file cabinet and when I typed up something, the secretary would type it onto the card because they are mostly blank. And my original typing would be attached to the card.

03-00:08:43 Meeker: And so the registrar does this work. Does each item in the collection have like a call number as they do in a library or something?

03-00:08:48 Bartholomew: Yes. Yeah. So there’s a lot of numbering for them to do. Some have good calligraphy and others were horrible. So that’s the job of a registrar. Also he took care of any shows that were traveling. At that time the Brundage collection was going to Japan and places like that.

03-00:09:11 Meeker: So they would be in charge of checking out the material and making sure it was returned?

03-00:09:16 Bartholomew: Mm-hmm. Do all the paperwork, take care of the crating, supervise the shipping—carrying these things back and forth to the airport. So you have to deal with truckers. And the conservators, of course, would fix whatever we break. They’re always yelling at us for breaking things and we say, “Well, we kept your job going. If we don’t break things, you won’t have anything to do.” So there’s so much work going on because a lot of the bronzes were pretty dirty and the stone sculptures needed a bath. So between the director and the conservator, they made up a special bathtub with a pulley and chains that you can lift the sculpture up and lower it into the water to be scrubbed and cleaned and sometimes interesting things happened.

03-00:10:09 Meeker: Like?

03-00:10:10 Bartholomew: Like one piece of sculpture broke into four pieces. It was glued together and we didn’t even know. The dealer did such a good job. So it was put together again. And Roger was very good at painting over all the mending lines so you could barely see it.

03-00:10:26 Meeker: When a stone sculpture, for instance, is washed, do you know what sort of process they used? Were they using special soaps or were these soaps that could be bought easily commercially?

03-00:10:41 Bartholomew: Mainly water. Just scrubbing. Just mainly dirt. But sometimes the sculptures were painted. And before they were painted they were given a whitewash. And the whitewash would be pretty thick. And the conservator had a special machine. They spend a lot of time just, I would say, kind of sandblasting or something. They just blasted the white wash off.

03-00:11:06 Meeker: Oh, blasting with compressed water or—

03-00:11:07 Bartholomew: Yeah. No, compressed air.

03-00:11:10 Meeker: Compressed air, okay.

03-00:11:11 Bartholomew: Yeah, pretty strong. So the conservators were able to remove a lot of incrustation that way. And I remembered we had a Tibetan book cover. It was completely full of dirt. And that one you have to use special solvent to clean. And when they were through the gold gilt appeared. It was so beautiful. It’s on display now. But when I first saw it, the whole thing was brown and black. It was covered with grime, though, from all these years. But when I was a trainee I was told to go clean that and I got a headache. Because in those days we didn’t know anything about when you worked with solvents you’ve got to have some kind of suction thing. What you call that thing?

03-00:11:53 Meeker: Exhaust.

03-00:11:54 Bartholomew: Exhaust. I didn’t work under an exhaust so I got a headache.

03-00:11:58 Meeker: Wear a mask and all that kind of stuff, right?

03-00:12:00 Bartholomew: No, I didn’t wear a mask. We didn’t wear gloves either.

03-00:12:03 Meeker: I assume this is probably an example of it, this Tibetan book where you get this book and it’s—

03-00:12:09 Bartholomew: Book cover.

03-00:12:09 Meeker: A book cover, okay, and it’s in a state of disrepair and then it’s cleaned and it becomes something else entirely.

03-00:12:17 Bartholomew: It’s so beautiful, yes.

03-00:12:18 Meeker: Were there any other examples of things happening like that? You think about in western art, for hundreds of years art historians talked about Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel and praised its muted colors and then once the conservators came in and cleaned it, all of a sudden it’s pastels and bright. Were there any surprises that you can recall in the work of the conservators when something maybe unexpected came as a result of their work?

03-00:12:49 Bartholomew: Oh, nothing like that. It just becomes very clean, much better. Except that one time, one piece of sculpture was going to Miami or someplace like this. It was a Tibetan sculpture. And it was leaking barley seeds. So the conservator opened the bottom and all these things came off. Those were all consecration material. When you consecrate a statue you put in all kinds of sacred grains and rolled up prayers. So the conservators just removed everything and put them in a plastic box and put down, “This came from B60S—something, something.” Just the number. So I felt very bad about it because you’re not supposed to do things like that.

03-00:13:34 Meeker: Because it was a sacred object?

03-00:13:35 Bartholomew: Yeah. We didn’t do anything until we left the museum. And those were dead years because we didn’t have any exhibition going on. So the director said, “Well, think of something. Get the public in here.” I said, “Okay. Let’s get those sculptures re-consecrated.” There was a stupa this big also on display and the big sculpture. And so by that time I knew many Tibetan friends and they got some monks to come in. Oh, it was serious. The monk gave me two pages, like sandalwood, dry cypress leaves, cypress wood. I said, “You think you’re in Tibet? Gold, silver, turquoise, coral?” I said, “You expect me to find these things?” So we did. [laughter] We found all the things for him and he put in everything.

03-00:14:26 Meeker: What was the process then of re-consecrating them? How did they use these materials that you found?

03-00:14:31 Bartholomew: First of all, there were many rolled up prayers and this monk just got them Xeroxed. Because in Tibet they would have been printed but you don’t have the blocks, so he just Xeroxed some old prayers, rolled them up tightly, sewed them in yellow silk, and literally pound these prayers, they’re little rolled up cylinders like this, into the sculpture. And the conservator who stood next to me was turning pale. I said, “Get him a rubber mallet.” So she did. [laughter] He was using a hammer. So everything went back in. So at least I did something.

03-00:15:07 Meeker: That’s fascinating. I can imagine the conservators were very conservative about preserving—

03-00:15:15 Bartholomew: Yes, about what goes inside.

03-00:15:16 Meeker: Yeah. Were there any rules established or was the most important thing to reconsecrate the items?

03-00:15:22 Bartholomew: I showed that list to the conservators. They had no objection. And tons of people came—

03-00:15:28 Meeker: Because there’s mice in museums and if you’re putting barley in it, that could attract vermin.

03-00:15:32 Bartholomew: Yes, yes. No, you seal the bottom. Yeah. There is a piece of copper sealing it. And so a lot of people came to watch. So it caused some excitement.

03-00:15:44 Meeker: And when was it? This was when they were moving from the park to downtown?

03-00:15:47 Bartholomew: It was the year before we closed down the museum because there was one year when we just closed the museum entirely. It was that year.

03-00:15:56 Meeker: So I guess the new museum opens up in 2003, so this would have been probably 2002 or something like that.

03-00:16:02 Bartholomew: No, 2002 the museum would have been closed. It would be maybe 2001.

03-00:16:05 Meeker: Oh, okay, all right. And then what was the ceremony like? Were you like—

03-00:16:11 Bartholomew: Oh, the monk came and chanted first, the lamas, chanted. Then we brought up the sculpture and they burned incense and said prayers over it and they stuffed everything back in. And I happened to have a sacred instrument with five metals (gold, silver, brass, copper, iron) on it and he said, “Perfect.” And the monk filed the instrument I have, this little ritual object, so that the dust of the five metals went inside.

03-00:16:41 Meeker: Oh, wow.

03-00:16:41 Bartholomew: Yeah, five is a sacred number.

03-00:16:43 Meeker: So did these kinds of ceremonies only happen with Tibetan Buddhist artifacts?

03-00:16:48 Bartholomew: Yes. I’m sure some Chinese objects could but the sculptures came empty so we didn’t know. I was told that when other people buy sculptures and they go through U.S. customs in the sixties and seventies, they literally just open them up and dump everything out thinking that they were smuggling dope.

03-00:17:08 Meeker: Oh, interesting.

03-00:17:11 Bartholomew: Yeah.

03-00:17:14 Meeker: Because I imagine some people did use them for smuggling. Yeah.

03-00:17:17 Bartholomew: Then we come to the preparators.

03-00:17:22 Meeker: Yes. Thank you for getting us back on track. [laughter]

03-00:17:23 Bartholomew: Yeah. They display all the cases. The curators would have to go and tell them what to do and our job is to say, “Okay, move this one inch to the right, two inches to the left.” So they do the setting up. And, also, those cases are very heavy. They have huge pieces of wood behind them. I couldn’t even handle that. So they have to help us. But in those days, we didn’t have enough people and when you have a freestanding case, we have to lift the glass ourselves and I always freaked out. I was so afraid with the glass falling backwards. But nothing happened.

03-00:18:01 Meeker: And you were using glass as opposed to plexi at this point?

03-00:18:06 Bartholomew: Yes. That’s glass. With those glass cases.

03-00:18:09 Meeker: When did plexi come in? Do you know? Or is that not used today?

03-00:18:12 Bartholomew: It became very popular in the seventies. Then we began to have one preparatory, who specialized in making plexi cases.

03-00:18:21 Meeker: What was the advantage of plexi? Just that it didn’t break in the same way that glass would have?

03-00:18:25 Bartholomew: But they scratch.

03-00:18:25 Meeker: They scratch?

03-00:18:27 Bartholomew: Yes.

03-00:18:28 Meeker: Plexi scratches more. Yeah. But the advantage was the breakage or maybe the expense?

03-00:18:32 Bartholomew: The advantage is that you expose four sides of the sculpture. There’s no wood blocking your view of the piece.

03-00:18:43 Meeker: Okay. So glass, because of its weight, requires some structure.

03-00:18:47 Bartholomew: Frames, yeah.

03-00:18:48 Meeker: Frames inside of that. Interesting.

03-00:18:51 Bartholomew: Yeah. But a lot of these cases were built in. And sometimes they were not very careful when they handle objects, so our job is like, “Come on, be careful. Two hands, please,” things like that. So we had to do a lot of supervision. And I’m sure they were sensitive because you have—it’s just a young kid telling them what to do. [laughter] No, but we had fun.

03-00:19:18 Meeker: So maybe just a brief overview of the curators work rather.

03-00:19:22 Bartholomew: The curators. We have a lot of correspondence. People write to us. Really annoying because people from New York would write to us about Chinese objects. And I felt like asking, “Why don’t you bother the Metropolitan Museum? Why write to us?” But we get it from all over America and we have to write back and give them all—actually, we sometimes have to do a lot of research for them before we can write those letters.

03-00:19:49 Meeker: What was in these letters? What were they typically asking?

03-00:19:53 Bartholomew: “My grandmother left me this figure. What is it? How much is it worth?” So we’d tell them what it is but not how much it is worth because we are not allowed to. So it’s mainly like this. Because they had nobody to turn to.

03-00:20:08 Meeker: So this was actually a fair portion of the work that you were doing as a curator?

03-00:20:11 Bartholomew: Mm-hmm. And then once a month, the third Friday, we had public day and I really enjoyed it. The whole day people all over the Bay Area would bring in three pieces of work each and we have to go and tell them what they are.

03-00:20:28 Meeker: So I wonder where was this public day situated? Did they have a bunch of tables set up and you would just walk around? Did they bring the items to you?

03-00:20:37 Bartholomew: Yeah. We were set up at special tables because you have several people coming in. One table is Japanese, one is Chinese. So I would help the Chinese curator. Yeah. I remember. I was very young. And this man brought in a piece of—remember Cost Plus in those days?

03-00:20:53 Meeker: Yeah.

03-00:20:54 Bartholomew: They brought in a lot of Indian sculptures, wooden sculptures, some that were pretty erotic. So this man, really a dirty old man, came in with this wooden panel on a pushcart and he looked at me, smiling, said, “What is this?” I said, “Well, exactly what they are doing. They are making love.” [laughter]

03-00:21:13 Meeker: [laughter] Did you enjoy this because it was a challenge or—

03-00:21:18 Bartholomew: Yes, it was very challenging. And if I don’t know what it is then I start asking questions myself. “How did you get this? Oh, your grandfather was a sailing

ship captain. Oh, where did he sail to? When?” That’s the way you pull things together. So it must have been new when he purchased it initially.

03-00:21:38 Meeker: I assume that there’s some objects that were very obvious, meaning the content of the representation and so forth. What are the objects that were more difficult rather to identify?

03-00:21:54 Bartholomew: Chinese painting. Yeah. Because, first of all, you have to be able to recognize the signature, and if it’s in cursive you have a hard time recognizing it. And then is it real? So that’s when we run into the library and grab a book and come out for comparison. Say, “Well, the signature isn’t right because the stroke doesn’t look correct.” And the librarian was very good. And we’d say, “Hey, grab me a book on so and so,” and then he’ll find it for us.

I know one curator could barely read Chinese and he would BS his way through and I was just horrified because there’s a date written right there. Chinese dates are called cyclical dates. Two Chinese characters. If you’re not careful, you will miss it. Those occur every sixty years. So if you know who the artist was and you know his dates, then you go to the Chinese calendars and check, because this date occurs every sixty years. Sixty-year cycle. And then you can guess what should be the correct date. You can do it correctly. Yeah.

03-00:23:08 Meeker: So the correct date on the Western calendar?

03-00:23:10 Bartholomew: Mm-hmm. And it was right in front of him and I couldn’t say anything because he was handling it. This can be very dangerous.

03-00:23:21 Meeker: How long did these public days go on for?

03-00:23:23 Bartholomew: Even going now.

03-00:23:24 Meeker: Oh, okay.

03-00:23:25 Bartholomew: But once Michael Knight came, he did not like public days. Actually, he does not. He still hates it. Michael Knight is the Chinese curator. So he said, “We should only do it for our high paying members.” And I was a bit shocked because I felt that we are a city and county department. We should serve the entire San Francisco. Why just serve the rich? But I guess part of the reason was he hated doing it so he thought less people would come in. But it’s not true. More people came in. So we got very organized. We have one secretary

in charge of taking all these calls, and just make sure the curators are not—so many people coming in at one time. We kind of divide them.

03-00:24:16 Meeker: I wonder if you were able to bring in, for instance, grad students from Berkeley or was it just the curators who—

03-00:24:25 Bartholomew: Once in a while we would have graduate students coming in but they were too inexperienced for this type of work. But part of the times we couldn’t afford it. You have to pay people something. And the poor students couldn’t really volunteer. Not if they have to pay for the bus fare over to San Francisco. But we have a lot of students coming over to do their projects for Berkeley and we do help them. Because in Los Angeles I have seen bad feelings between the curators and the professors and I said, “This is not going to happen if I become a curator. So I make sure I cooperate with Joanna Williams and all her students would come over and I would take them into storage and spend time with them.

03-00:25:09 Meeker: Joanna Williams at Cal?

03-00:25:10 Bartholomew: Yeah, Professor of Indian Art.

03-00:25:14 Meeker: I wonder on these public days did any unexpected masterpieces come through the door?

03-00:25:20 Bartholomew: Yes. I think the most impressive was the Jesuit priest. The name slipped me right now. It was an Italian priest who worked during the Qing Dynasty for the court. He was a court artist. [Giuseppe] Castiglione. And it was his horses and you could tell those are his because it’s painted in the European fashion, European colors and modeling and all that. Chinese paintings are mounted with a backing because of the moisture it separated from the paperbacking. So it was just the silk but it was so exciting seeing that.

03-00:26:11 Meeker: So that the backing had long fallen off?

03-00:26:12 Bartholomew: Yeah. No, no. Just separated. So you can see the very thin silk with painting on it. Of course, we shamelessly asked her to give it to us. That’s part of our job.

03-00:26:23 Meeker: Yeah. Do you know what the provenance of it was?

03-00:26:26 Bartholomew: Belonged to her family. Because at the end of the dynasty, people started taking things out from the palace and selling it. So many of those Imperial paintings came outside. No, the lady won’t give it to us. It’s an old Chinese lady. But I have to tell you that we got a batch of jades, yeah, from a gay man because his lover died and he didn’t know what to do with it. So we told him what to do with it.

03-00:26:53 Meeker: Did these come in through the public days?

03-00:26:54 Bartholomew: Yes.

03-00:26:55 Meeker: They did?

03-00:26:56 Bartholomew: Yes, a lot.

03-00:26:57 Meeker: When did this happen? Do you recall?

03-00:26:59 Bartholomew: Actually, if I look at the piece of jade and look at the co number, then I would know. I would say in the nineties. Yeah. When did people start dying of AIDS?

03-00:27:15 Meeker: Early 1980s so it was probably—

03-00:27:17 Bartholomew: Eighties and nineties.

03-00:27:18 Meeker: Nineties, yeah. Okay. And so did this individual bring in a lot of jade pieces?

03-00:27:25 Bartholomew: Like about twenty. About twenty jade pieces. Okay. More than ten and he said he didn’t know what to do with them because his lover left him. So I said, “Well, give it to the museum. We’ll display them.” And we did. We displayed them. There’s some still on display on the second floor.

03-00:27:41 Meeker: Do you recall the name of the collection? Did it come in as an individual’s name?

03-00:27:44 Bartholomew: Okay. Yeah. If you wait one minute I will get—

03-00:28:07 Meeker: So like most jade, these were quite small, I imagine, right?

03-00:28:10 Bartholomew: Mm-hmm. Not really. [Looking at an Asian Art Museum catalog of jade figures.] You see, Brundage bought Brundage sized pieces, big chunky ones. And these are all small ornaments, which Brundage did not buy.

03-00:28:21 Meeker: Oh, interesting.

03-00:28:22 Bartholomew: So we were very happy to have it. Two point five point one. So it was like this little plaque. It’s quite nice. Two butterflies over the character for happiness.

03-00:28:33 Meeker: Okay. So just a description of the pieces, two butterflies over the character for happiness.

03-00:28:40 Bartholomew: Somewhere in here I should say where something came from. Okay. Two point five point one. Okay. Okay. Gift of RW Winskill in memory of Lionel H. Priest. So, 1986.

03-00:29:11 Meeker: Okay, ’86. All right. So B86 was the call number?

03-00:29:15 Bartholomew: Yeah. So he came in ’86.

03-00:29:18 Meeker: And the origin of it was 1800 and 1900 Qing Dynasty.

03-00:29:29 Bartholomew: So that means it’s a nineteenth century piece.

03-00:29:29 Meeker: Yeah, nineteenth century piece. Okay. I wonder how, when you approach something like that, which there’s no date on and it’s very small, there’s no artist name, how do you date something like that?

03-00:29:42 Bartholomew: You look at other museum catalogs and see how they date it and hopefully they’re correct. But you can tell when something is late—

03-00:29:50 Meeker: Okay. Well, how do you tell? I’m curious about this.

03-00:29:53 Bartholomew: I look at a lot of jade catalogs, so you know that, okay, Sung Dynasty jade is like this, Ming is like this, Qing is like this. So you kind of memorize the shapes. What are the shapes that occur in the Qing Dynasty? Usually every dynasty is different.

03-00:30:14 Meeker: How can you be sure that something like this was not a twentieth century replica of something from the Qing Dynasty?

03-00:30:22 Bartholomew: And that is also quite true. And you look at the drill marks.

03-00:30:27 Meeker: You look at?

03-00:30:28 Bartholomew: The drill marks. Because by that time they use diamond drill and the finishing is very different. But you can only see it under the loop. But usually, if it is a late piece, you look at the polish. It’s very shiny. Because by that time they have carborundum or these new things that they polish with, which gives a very glassy look. And if it is polished originally with a piece of gourd, then it’s very different.

03-00:31:00 Meeker: Okay, interesting. This kind of knowledge, is this knowledge something that you were initially gaining while in grad school?

03-00:31:11 Bartholomew: No.

03-00:31:12 Meeker: Or this was primarily on the job?

03-00:31:12 Bartholomew: I didn’t gain it until twenty years ago when a jade carver came and told us about polish.

03-00:31:19 Meeker: Oh, really?

03-00:31:19 Bartholomew: Yes. And then taught us how to look for the diamond drill marks. Because you don’t study these in school. You don’t even study jade at all. So it’s very difficult being a curator because in my college I was taught Chinese bronzes. I knew those really well. And I knew Buddhist sculptures and maybe a little bit about painting. That’s it. Any textiles, jade carvings, lacquer, cloisonné, you just learn by yourself.

03-00:31:52 Meeker: So as a curator you actually need to become a master of many types of knowledge. But as, say, a faculty art historian you can be—

03-00:32:00 Bartholomew: Right. You don’t have to. You can be specialized in something.

03-00:32:03 Meeker: Are there any other key aspects about the curatorial work that you did at the museum and brought over here that you can give me a sense into? I know that later on you started to curate your own exhibits.

03-00:32:19 Bartholomew: Actually, I began already in ’68.

03-00:32:22 Meeker: You did, okay.

03-00:32:23 Bartholomew: Yes.

03-00:32:24 Meeker: So what were some of the first exhibits?

03-00:32:26 Bartholomew: My first exhibition was Indian/Southeast Asian stone sculptures. d’Argencé did the Southeast Asian part, I did the Indian part, and that went to Pasadena. And I was lucky because the semester before, as a student at UCLA, we did a stone sculpture show together, so at least I knew how to write the catalog entries and things like that.

03-00:32:49 Meeker: So was this an exhibit that was actually staged at the museum or was it traveling or both?

03-00:32:55 Bartholomew: It traveled.

03-00:32:56 Meeker: Both.

03-00:32:56 Bartholomew: It traveled to Pasadena and to like six or seven other areas in the United States.

03-00:33:02 Meeker: And Pasadena, would that have been the—

03-00:33:04 Bartholomew: The Norton Simon Museum. Yeah. That was before Norton Simon took over. Yeah.

03-00:33:10 Meeker: It was called the Pasadena Art Museum?

03-00:33:12 Bartholomew: Yeah. And it just opened. It was the inaugural show.

03-00:33:15 Meeker: Well, I do remember actually—maybe it was in ’69 when Brundage was renegotiating the donation of a second batch of his work. I think the Pasadena Museum was one of the possible destinations of it before the city actually got there.

03-00:33:37 Bartholomew: Everybody was out to get it. Los Angeles County Museum, they were out to get it.

03-00:33:42 Meeker: Yes. As well as the Honolulu Art Museum. It was another one on the top of the list.

03-00:33:45 Bartholomew: Yeah, yeah.

03-00:33:47 Meeker: Yeah. I do want to talk about some of the exhibitions.

03-00:33:56 Bartholomew: Do you want to hear more about what curators do?

03-00:33:57 Meeker: Yeah, yeah. Okay. Let’s finish with the overview.

03-00:33:59 Bartholomew: Okay. So we answer letters. We answer phone calls. So we have all these verbal descriptions, people describing a piece to you over the phone. So I say, “Please send a picture. I am not Superman. I don’t know what you’re describing.” Plus the description they give us was very different from how we would describe it. So we get a lot of pictures. And also they say, “Oh, my grandma just died and we have a whole house full of these things.” I hated doing that. “And my husband died and left all these things.” Especially dealing with widows or widowers. And you go into all these houses. So sometimes we have to go by ourselves but if possible I like someone else to go with me. It’s very sad, and I wasn’t trained to deal with grief. And so you have to be very understanding, especially when the objects are all junk. The person is so sad already. You don’t want to, on top of that, do something else. So we try to be very diplomatic. If it is nice, of course we will take it but if it isn’t then we tell them to give it to somebody else. Then we name certain places. If it is more ethnic then we say go to Berkeley. I forgot the name of the museum there.

03-00:35:20 Meeker: Well, the Berkeley Art Museum?

03-00:35:22 Bartholomew: No, it’s the other one. The other side of the street. It’s an anthol—

03-00:35:27 Meeker: Is it the Hearst Museum of Anthropology?

03-00:35:29 Bartholomew: Yes. Yeah, yeah. We ask them to give to that one or to give to the Academy of Sciences.

03-00:35:34 Meeker: So the understanding was those would be not pieces of fine art but rather more teaching tools?

03-00:35:41 Bartholomew: And if it is really a fine piece then you have to tell them how to get it appraised and give them names of appraisers because we couldn’t do any of that. So that’s one way of getting pieces into the museum. And sometimes there are bequests. The lawyers will call up and say, “Okay, in the will these things belong to you. Come take a look.” So we have to go and take a look. So at least get you outside of the museum.

03-00:36:12 Meeker: So it sounds like quite a bit of work you were doing was appraisal or identification.

03-00:36:17 Bartholomew: Right. Not really appraisal but identification.

03-00:36:20 Meeker: Yeah. Appraisal has financial implications, right?

03-00:36:22 Bartholomew: Right, yeah. And so the rest of the time will be cataloguing what we have, because everything is new. Everything is new to us. We don’t know them. They haven’t been catalogued. And also at that time we do a lot of publishing.

03-00:36:39 Meeker: Well, what is the cataloguing process, then? Can you walk me through that?

03-00:36:43 Bartholomew: Okay. So first of all, who is it? Okay. So this is the God Shiva. What form of Shiva? What is it made of? So you would say what kind of stone it is. And the registrar will do the measuring. And then we will just do a description. The statue is in the round or in bas-relief. Four hands, each hands holding this. Then you name them and talk about significance, which part of India it came from, what dynasty, why. Because every period you have different stylistic comparisons. So you just have to write all those things down.

03-00:37:23 Meeker: So that sounds like a pretty objective description, right? To what extent were you also allowed to or interested in more subjective evaluations of its beauty or of its significance?

03-00:37:40 Bartholomew: Brundage has certain ways. I think “excellent,” “good,” and then the one you don’t want is “discard.” That means you had better sell this. So I think those were a long time ago before we came, so I don’t have to worry about it. Except if I disagree, then I say so. Yeah. Then I say, “Oh, you shouldn’t discard this because it is a good piece.”

03-00:38:06 Meeker: So Brundage already had that subjective evaluation of each piece?

03-00:38:10 Bartholomew: Yeah.

03-00:38:11 Meeker: Can you think of any items that you came across that you found to be excellent but had previously been described as discard?

03-00:38:20 Bartholomew: God, so long ago. It’s too long.

03-00:38:28 Meeker: Okay. All right. It’s awfully detailed but—

03-00:38:31 Bartholomew: So many pieces went through my hands. Yeah.

03-00:38:36 Meeker: Maybe in general. What would make something discard?

03-00:38:40 Bartholomew: When they felt that this may be a fake because scholars would come in and all their comments were written on these cards. In fact, somebody should Xerox one of these cards to show the evaluation on top and then the description on the bottom. I don’t have any of those at home.

03-00:39:00 Meeker: How long would it take to do the catalog record for one of these?

03-00:39:06 Bartholomew: If you are lucky, in one hour. But if you don’t know what it is, it takes days to find the identity of the sculpture.

03-00:39:15 Meeker: And roughly how many items were in the Brundage collection when you started in ’68?

03-00:39:22 Bartholomew: I don’t know.

03-00:39:24 Meeker: Thousands, right?

03-00:39:25 Bartholomew: Thousands. Yeah. I’m not good at numbers.

03-00:39:28 Meeker: So this was a massive undertaking, then, to create a catalog record for this collection?

03-00:39:34 Bartholomew: Yeah. And Indian sculptures are easier because there are so many catalogs written about these already. I remember I went through every book and every time I see a Vishnu I wrote on the little index card, “Vishnu page so and so,” so that next time I come across it I know which book to look for. But pretty soon there’s so much publication coming in I couldn’t handle it. That was before the computers.

03-00:40:03 Meeker: Did you think that that has to do with the British colonial history in India?

03-00:40:09 Bartholomew: No, there’s some interest in Indian art in the sixties and seventies. And Dr. Pratapaditya Pal of LA County Museum, he was so prolific. He wrote so many books.

03-00:40:20 Meeker: Can you say his name again?

03-00:40:22 Bartholomew: Pratapaditya Pal. P-A-L. Dr. Pal. So I studied a lot of his catalogs and learned to write. Because it’s really foreign to me. In graduate school nobody teaches you how to write a catalog entry. So we just learn by reading other people’s entries.

03-00:40:43 Meeker: Well, and then you said in addition to cataloguing and writing descriptions for the display, you were publishing quite a bit, especially during the earlier years.

03-00:40:56 Bartholomew: Yeah. Okay, the first major one was the sculpture catalog. That was horrible.

03-00:41:01 Meeker: Why do you say that?

03-00:41:03 Bartholomew: Because these are not sculptures that you see anywhere. So you have to go through so many books to find out what they are. And it wasn’t something I like. I think that was the main thing. But everybody—

03-00:41:20 Meeker: You didn’t like the work itself or you didn’t like the sculptures?

03-00:41:21 Bartholomew: I didn’t like the sculptures and I didn’t like writing about Chinese sculptures because I felt I don’t know enough to write. But I wasn’t the only one because Sylvia had to do it, Shangraw had to do it. In those days, everyone had to do things together, whether or not this is your field. And I was the Indian curator. But, still, I had to write. And I remember d’Argencé would go on vacation and he did not trust us. We’re supposed to turn in a certain number every week. I forgot how many.

03-00:41:57 Meeker: Oh, wow.

03-00:41:57 Bartholomew: Yeah. Mr. Gerstley came in. You heard of Mr. Gerstley?

03-00:42:01 Meeker: James Gerstley?

03-00:42:02 Bartholomew: He was the head of the commissioners then. He would come in and collect from us. And he’d say, “Why is it difficult to write? It should be so easy. I just spent such and such a short time and I wrote the history of the Wells Fargo Bank.” He wrote that book, I believe, about the twenty mule team and all that. So he was disgusted with the rest of us.

03-00:42:26 Meeker: Wow. So it sounds like there was a lot of pressure on you and your team to—

03-00:42:29 Bartholomew: There was a lot of pressure.

03-00:42:29 Meeker: —to perform. Did you understand where this pressure was coming from? Did you realize that it was coming from Brundage at this point?

03-00:42:38 Bartholomew: Yes, it was coming from Brundage because every year we were supposed to publish his collection and the money had to be used. That’s the budget and that’s a deadline. So you have to do it. And some curators, they somehow could not follow directions. If you are told to give this sculpture one page, give them one page, some of them wrote three pages. And then, of course, the editor would be very upset and there would be huge fights. Why didn’t you do it right to begin with? But I found out later on it’s really true of a lot of people. They don’t know when to stop and they expect somebody else to cut it down, which is a big mistake.

03-00:43:24 Meeker: To me that’s kind of an indication of like a scholarly personality. That there is a big difference in, for example, museum work where you have certain deadlines, you have a board of directors who’s expecting a certain level of

output. And then on the other hand you have academics for whom your only real deadline is making sure you publish by the time you come up for tenure and there is no penalty for writing too in-depth. In fact, perhaps there’s maybe even an incentive to be even more in-depth. Is that an adequate description of the sort of class of personalities?

03-00:44:11 Bartholomew: Could be. Yeah. But I found out that a lot of people could not follow deadlines and they cannot follow requirements through working with all these curators. Because if you want to write that much, publish it somewhere else. A catalog has to be—a certain amount of lines required for each object and you just can’t write pages and pages.

03-00:44:40 Meeker: When you had people who you were working with, curators or I guess probably assistant curators or people who are assisting writing with the catalogs, was this a pretty consistent team during these initial years or was there a lot of turnover?

03-00:44:56 Bartholomew: No, it was consistent. Because people, I guess in our field, they would just stay forever in the job. But I was never given an assistant until we had big shows coming in.

03-00:45:11 Meeker: Okay. Really?

03-00:45:12 Bartholomew: I guess I don’t scream loud enough. In fact, I had to help other departments.

03-00:45:17 Meeker: When did you first get an assistant?

03-00:45:21 Bartholomew: I got it when we were doing Wisdom and Compassion. I think Rand [Castile] still was in charge and that was the first Tibetan show. It was really huge.

03-00:45:29 Meeker: And that wasn’t until the 1980s then?

03-00:45:32 Bartholomew: Yeah, nineties. Maybe late eighties, early nineties [ed.: 1991]. Somebody had to actually speak Tibetan so we found somebody who could speak Tibetan.

03-00:45:45 Meeker: Interesting. Okay. Is there anything else in general about the work of a curator that you want to—

03-00:45:56 Bartholomew: Yeah, what else? Yeah. Also doing shows. For example, when we did the first Shanghai exhibition the catalog came in Chinese. We have to translate the whole thing.

03-00:46:21 Meeker: Do you recall when the Shanghai exhibition was?

03-00:46:24 Bartholomew: Shanghai exhibition, probably in the nineties [ed.: 1993], I think. Oh, it should be in there somewhere. No, I don’t remember.

03-00:46:28 Meeker: Yeah, yeah. I’m sure I’ve got it in some of my notes somewhere but not in this.

03-00:46:33 Bartholomew: Yeah. Five thousand years of—

03-00:46:36 Meeker: Well, there was the Korean exhibition that came—I think that was about ’77, ’79.

03-00:46:46 Bartholomew: We had to work on that, too. We were not translating, yeah.

03-00:46:50 Meeker: Well, let’s back up a little bit. I don’t want to get too much into the 1980s quite yet. In the seventies. Let’s go through some of the exhibitions in particular. You had mentioned this first exhibition, the Indian and Southeast Asian stone sculptures work.

03-00:47:17 Bartholomew: Right.

03-00:47:18 Meeker: So you actually played the key role in selecting items for display?

03-00:47:21 Bartholomew: Selecting, then writing.

03-00:47:25 Meeker: From what it seems, the first perhaps major exhibition that was not maybe a blockbuster exhibition, if you will, would have been maybe not until the mid- 1970s when there—

03-00:47:40 Bartholomew: It’s an archeological exhibition. That was the first blockbuster. And it was still the best. People lined up. They were sitting in the bandstand listening to music. They had to be entertained outside. That was something else.

03-00:47:58 Meeker: How would you describe the exhibits then before 1975? Between your arrival—

03-00:48:06 Bartholomew: They were much smaller. They were much smaller and there’s not much fanfare about it. You don’t have people waiting in line. But the first blockbuster was King Tut. So after that, every museum wanted a blockbuster.

03-00:48:20 Meeker: That was 1979.

03-00:48:22 Bartholomew: Ah, okay. And the archeological show came later than King Tut, I’m sure.

03-00:48:30 Meeker: Okay. Maybe you’re right. Maybe King Tut was a little bit earlier.

03-00:48:36 Bartholomew: No, you are right because I took my child to King Tut and I was giving birth to my first baby when the Chinese show came. Okay. So the Chinese show came before King Tut.

03-00:48:48 Meeker: Yeah. But there’s a different level, right?

03-00:48:50 Bartholomew: Yeah.

03-00:48:51 Meeker: There’s blockbuster and then there’s super blockbuster.

03-00:48:54 Bartholomew: Yeah, right.

03-00:48:55 Meeker: And I think King Tut has made its way into history as being transformative. I’m pretty sure that the King Tut show here at the de Young was the first time I ever stepped foot in the museum.

03-00:49:07 Bartholomew: Yeah? Really?

03-00:49:08 Meeker: Because I grew up down in South Bay and I remember—

03-00:49:13 Bartholomew: Your parents took you?

03-00:49:15 Meeker: My parents took us. I had two older sisters. And the five of us went and I think that our tickets were for the nighttime. Like maybe in the evening or something like that.

03-00:49:25 Bartholomew: Ah, must be so impressive.

03-00:49:27 Meeker: And we went out to dinner afterwards or something like that because the museum was open, what, probably fourteen or eighteen hours a day.

03-00:49:32 Bartholomew: Right. Because I was carrying my daughter. She was two. Two or three. Two years old, yeah, she saw that.

03-00:49:43 Meeker: Well, one of the other interviews that I did, and this is sort of a digression, but I interviewed Walter Newman, who was the son-in-law of Cyril Magnin. And apparently they both played a big role in bringing this out to San Francisco. But anyways—

03-00:49:58 Bartholomew: Oh, they did? Okay. I didn’t know that.

03-00:50:00 Meeker: Yeah. That’s an aside. So I guess before you get to these blockbusters in the mid-1970s, I wonder if you can kind of just in general characterize what the exhibits were like that were staged at what eventually became called the Asian Art Museum.

03-00:50:19 Bartholomew: First of all, they’re much smaller to begin with.

03-00:50:23 Meeker: When you say smaller, how many artifacts are we talking about today?

03-00:50:26 Bartholomew: That means we don’t have to clear off the entire Chinese department to—we have one room for temporary exhibitions. There’s only one room. And we did the Chang Dai-Chien exhibition. That was very important. And he was living in Carmel then. So he was willing to lend I don’t know how many paintings to us. And Sylvia Shangraw was in charge, except she got pregnant and I was told, “You take over.”

In those days, curators cannot just hide in the corner and do their own thing. You do everything you are told to do, which is not happening now. I remember my job was to look at the painting, copy down the colophons, what was written on there. It was so difficult. He had a very characteristic way of writing. And luckily his son was here. So I would copy down everything, send

it to the son to be corrected and we’d get it back and then I would translate half and d’Argencé would translate half of the colophons.

03-00:51:30 Meeker: Ah, interesting.

03-00:51:32 Bartholomew: Now, in those days that’s one thing. d’Argencé kind of liked his name on the cover so my name did not get into that one.

03-00:51:41 Meeker: Well, I actually have a book here, a catalog.

03-00:51:45 Bartholomew: Yes, right.

03-00:51:46 Meeker: So can you pronounce Chang Dai-Chien?

03-00:51:49 Bartholomew: Chang Dai-Chien. How come you have a hardbound one [Chang Dai-Chien: A Retrospective (1972), exhibition catalog]?

03-00:52:01 Meeker: They bound it. Yeah, the library binds it. So actually let me ask you a little bit about this exhibit because I found it to be quite interesting and actually somewhat uncharacteristic of the exhibits that were happening or being staged there. And yes, your name is mentioned in the acknowledgements but not on the cover.

03-00:52:22 Bartholomew: Yeah, so I was there. And the same thing happened to the bronze catalog and the ceramic catalog. Shangraw’s name did not appear. So when the Indian sculpture book appear and my name appeared for the first time, he was very mad.

03-00:52:40 Meeker: Oh, Shangraw was mad?

03-00:52:41 Bartholomew: Shangraw was furious. He was furious not because my name was there but he was furious that d’Argencé did not put his name on the other catalogs but would put my name on the Indian catalog.

03-00:52:53 Meeker: And when was that exhibit? The Indian exhibit?

03-00:52:54 Bartholomew: The Indian exhibit was 1968.

03-00:52:56 Meeker: Oh, 1968. So your name was on the catalog.

03-00:52:59 Bartholomew: Oh, ’69. Must be. It must be ’69 then because I came in November. Must be ’69.

03-00:53:04 Meeker: Okay. So there was a catalog for that and your name was on it.

03-00:53:06 Bartholomew: It was the first catalog that the curators name got on it.

03-00:53:11 Meeker: Well, can you tell me a little bit about this artist?

03-00:53:14 Bartholomew: He was the greatest artist of the twentieth century. This is recognized outside of China and inside. Inside China and outside. And he could paint in many, many styles. But towards the end he was losing his sight. So he did the “pouring ink method.” He would paint a little bit and just pour the ink on.

03-00:53:39 Meeker: Sure. So just for reference, we’re looking at—

03-00:53:41 Bartholomew: The “Viewing the Waterfall.”

03-00:53:45 Meeker: That’s plate forty-five.

03-00:53:53 Bartholomew: I couldn’t read this. So this became his trademark. Here, this is what he looked like.

03-00:54:00 Meeker: Yeah. That’s a self-portrait.

03-00:54:01 Bartholomew: Had a long beard.

03-00:54:05 Meeker: Well, this actually kind of brings up a question in it, right, because you look through—so look at plates forty-four through forty-six later on. That’s thirty- five. That’s forty-one. Forty-three. I said forty-four. Gosh. Yeah, it’s these ones that we’re looking at, right.

03-00:54:29 Bartholomew: Yeah, the later ones.

03-00:54:30 Meeker: Forty-four, forty-five, forty-six. They’re very abstract and in the introduction—

03-00:54:44 Bartholomew: See, his early works are very different.

03-00:54:46 Meeker: They’re much more traditional, correct?

03-00:54:48 Bartholomew: Very traditional.

03-00:54:48 Meeker: So in the introduction, d’Argencé, I’m assuming he wrote this, said, “The early sixties were marked by drastic changes in Chang Dai-Chien style. An entirely new and modern manner, which constitutes a bridge between the past and future and could well lead to a revival of Chinese painting in the second half of the twentieth century.” Is that, you think, an accurate description?

03-00:55:15 Bartholomew: Yes.

03-00:55:16 Meeker: So it’s not just a matter of him losing his eyesight and that influencing his painting, but it seems to be—

03-00:55:24 Bartholomew: But it’s also in him. He was a very brave person. If you look at other Chinese landscape, they’re all traditional. Nobody would dare paint like him. And also, he was the one who went to the caves in Dunhuang and copied these cave paintings, which was very Indian in style.

03-00:55:45 Meeker: So in many ways he had a very historical sensibility, but unlike many Chinese paintings, he was also willing to incorporate modern sensibilities into his paintings.

03-00:55:55 Bartholomew: He was the first person I think.

03-00:55:57 Meeker: And so, for instance, he [d’Argencé] also says, “In contemporary western painting where novelty is a key word, such dramatic mutations are by no means exceptional.”

03-00:56:08 Bartholomew: Look at this. That’s very brave.

03-00:56:12 Meeker: Because I know that after the revolution in China he comes to live in the west and eventually settles in Carmel.

03-00:56:22 Bartholomew: Yeah, he went to Brazil and then came to Carmel and then went back to Taiwan and died there.

03-00:56:29 Meeker: Oh, he did?

03-00:56:29 Bartholomew: Yeah.

03-00:56:30 Meeker: Is it still accurate to call him a Chinese painter when he starts to paint more abstract, modern, one might say Western styles?

03-00:56:42 Bartholomew: No, it’s still very Chinese because the colors he use are traditional Chinese colors, except he just used them in a very different way.

03-00:56:53 Meeker: Well, I find it interesting that even when he’s, in essence, in exile from China he’s still painting landscapes that he refers to as Chinese landscapes. You don’t see him painting the Carmel seashore. Or maybe he does but not in this collection at least.

03-00:57:09 Bartholomew: Not in this collection, yeah.

03-00:57:11 Meeker: Yeah. Do you know if he painted United States or South American landscapes?

03-00:57:18 Bartholomew: No. Not South American. No, he didn’t paint Yosemite either. But he was fascinated by all those cypresses in Carmel. Yeah.

03-00:57:27 Meeker: Oh, okay. Do you know if he painted those?

03-00:57:31 Bartholomew: No. No, I don’t know.

Audio File 4

04-00:00:04 Meeker: A little bit more about this artist. One of the things that d’Argencé said in introduction to this is—he says “It’s the policy of this museum,” meaning the Asian Art Museum, “to restrict its exhibitions to historical materials. In this case, however, an exception was logical and highly desirable.” I would like your thoughts on both sides of this, and maybe we can start out with what is your thought on—if you can kind of think back to the late sixties and early seventies about this museum policy that it was really just focusing on

historical materials coming from Asia. Did that seem restrictive to you or appropriate?

04-00:01:03 Bartholomew: Because actually that was the style, not just our museum, every single museum. And modern art didn’t come in unless you have a modern art museum.

04-00:01:18 Meeker: So that you either had an historical focus museum or you had a contemporary or modern art museum?

04-00:01:24 Bartholomew: And also it’s a way of protecting yourself. Do you know how many Chinese artists are out there? Almost every day we get a call: “Can you show my paintings?” There are so many Chinese artists. You just can’t handle it. And Chang Dai-Chien, he is very different.

04-00:01:47 Meeker: So the central importance of him justifies the exception.

04-00:01:52 Bartholomew: Just like Picasso. So he has that kind of status and he happened to be living here, so it was perfect.

04-00:02:02 Meeker: Well, let me extend this question a little bit more in general about the policy of being a historical focus of the museum. That has changed in recent years.

04-00:02:19 Bartholomew: Yes.

04-00:02:21 Meeker: When did that policy start to loosen up a little bit?

04-00:02:26 Bartholomew: When Rand Castile came, he brought in a show called “Venus Transmogrified.” It was a horrifying show.

04-00:02:39 Meeker: Tell me about it.

04-00:02:40 Bartholomew: We used the bust of Venus. It was a Japanese artist. So the whole show was just the busts of Venus but painted with different people on them. And I remember Dianne Feinstein, who was the mayor then, got her face painted on one of them. I mean, can you imagine the docents who are used to historical shows? They refused to give a tour of that show. [laughter]

04-00:03:07 Meeker: Oh, really? So all of these works were produced specifically for this show?

04-00:03:13 Bartholomew: Yes. And at the same time, during Rand Castile’s time, the [San Francisco] Museum of Modern Art was doing a huge Chinese contemporary show with all these contemporary artists. It was a contemporary show but with Chinese participants. So they kind of begged us to take a few of the Chinese artists because they were running out of space. And I remember the Chinese artists were very disgusted because they didn’t think we were as famous as the Modern Art Museum. But they came. And I remember some of the art was really not what the audience were used to. They’re like very graphic sexual details and things like this. We were pretty scared to show such things in the museum.

04-00:04:09 Meeker: Really?

04-00:04:09 Bartholomew: Yeah. Because we’re not used to it. You can see it in a modern art museum but not in the Asian Art Museum.

04-00:04:15 Meeker: Well, if you also think about the audience. Education is a very central feature of the Asian Art Museum, that maybe you don’t have a lot of school groups coming through. As have MOMA.

04-00:04:32 Bartholomew: Right, school groups, yes. So we have to be careful of what we show to the kids. [laughter]

04-00:04:37 Meeker: Sure. How did you respond to that or how did the museum respond to the different subject matter in this particular show?

04-00:04:47 Bartholomew: I think they wrote some statement regarding it. I could not remember because I wasn’t too involved with that show luckily. I remember something like this. But who would remember? I don’t know. Maybe Alice Lowe will remember.

04-00:05:11 Meeker: Okay, we’ll ask her about this. We’re interviewing her again so—

04-00:05:14 Bartholomew: Yeah, ask her about the graphic, very graphic material in the contemporary show.

04-00:05:21 Meeker: Do you remember the name of that show?

04-00:05:24 Bartholomew: No, I couldn’t even remember that.

04-00:05:27 Meeker: So it sounds like this contemporary show was sort of a bust. It sounds like both the partnership with MOMA, as well as this “Venus Transmogrified,” is that what it was?

04-00:05:42 Bartholomew: Yeah.

04-00:05:43 Meeker: Found a lot of opposition amongst the curators and perhaps your staff?

04-00:05:51 Bartholomew: Also audience.

04-00:05:52 Meeker: And also audience. So the audience didn’t really like it either?

04-00:05:53 Bartholomew: Yeah. They wanted to see Asian art and Oriental art but not something as strange as that.

04-00:06:02 Meeker: I wonder if Rand Castile decided to do this Venus show because he thought it would attract more people?

04-00:06:10 Bartholomew: Right.

04-00:06:10 Meeker: Or the audience would like it?

04-00:06:12 Bartholomew: Yeah, that’s what he thought. He came from New York. Maybe a New York audience would like it but not San Francisco.

04-00:06:18 Meeker: Okay. So after these two shows it sounds like the policy didn’t really change. Maybe it went back to where it was?

04-00:06:22 Bartholomew: No, no, it’s different now. Now everybody is showing contemporary art and we even brought in a contemporary curator. My job’s split now into Himalayan curator and contemporary curator. So it changes. But still, a lot of people do not like it. For me, I don’t like it either. I didn’t even go see the latest one in the museum. I don’t know the name of it.

04-00:06:54 Meeker: Oh, the most recent contemporary art show?

04-00:06:56 Bartholomew: Yeah. I don’t understand it.

04-00:07:02 Meeker: Then back to this artist, Chang Dai-Chien, and I apologize if I keep mispronouncing it.

04-00:07:09 Bartholomew: No, Chang Dai-Chien. No, that’s fine. Chang Dai-Chien.

04-00:07:11 Meeker: He in some ways was modern in his abstracts.

04-00:07:16 Bartholomew: But still within the framework of classical Chinese art.

04-00:07:22 Meeker: Okay. So really a classical Chinese vernacular?

04-00:07:25 Bartholomew: Right.

04-00:07:25 Meeker: So I guess he was painting on silk?

04-00:07:28 Bartholomew: Silk or paper.

04-00:07:30 Meeker: Silk or paper. And he was using traditional paints, meaning drawn from traditional dyes?

04-00:07:35 Bartholomew: Right. Traditional brushes.

04-00:07:37 Meeker: Traditional brushes. And traditional subject matter, as well. So landscapes, some portraits of individuals, some mushrooms, and those kinds of things, as well.

04-00:07:54 Bartholomew: So those are all traditional subject matters. I mean, he was so versatile. I remember I really liked this one. So beautiful.

04-00:08:12 Meeker: Can you describe that one?

04-00:08:13 Bartholomew: That’s six panel paintings of a lotus pond with beautiful red lotus which he outlined in gold and it was against a gold background. It was just very grand.

04-00:08:27 Meeker: And this is plate seventeen and is called “Crimson Lotuses on a Gold Background.” And I imagine this probably was a multi-paneled painting, so it was probably larger.

04-00:08:37 Bartholomew: Yeah, six panels. Mm-hmm, large.

04-00:08:39 Meeker: And rather impressive.

04-00:08:40 Bartholomew: Very.

04-00:08:43 Meeker: Would you define this as traditional or was this innovative in some way?

04-00:08:46 Bartholomew: That’s traditional. I remember the show was inside the Jade Room, which was pretty big. The Magnin Jade Room. And in the back we have the width of the room just devoted to this.

04-00:09:04 Meeker: Oh, wow. So was this show fairly successful? How did people respond to having more contemporary artwork in the museum? This would have only been six years after it opened.

04-00:09:18 Bartholomew: Contemporary, no.

04-00:09:19 Meeker: Or modern maybe is the right—

04-00:09:20 Bartholomew: It’s modern, yeah. He was considered a modern artist. He’s okay because he is still classical. Yeah. And people loved it because this is a household name, so many Chinese came out to see the show. Yeah. It was very popular. If they know one Chinese artist, it’s him. [laughter]

04-00:09:44 Meeker: Or tell me, did d’Argencé repeat this show with artists—I guess there wouldn’t be someone who was the exact same caliber but—

04-00:10:00 Bartholomew: No. That’s the only time.

04-00:10:04 Meeker: And so maybe his presence, living in California, had been a large factor.

04-00:10:09 Bartholomew: I think d’Argencé dealt with him before in France. Yeah, I think I read somewhere in here. So it was somebody he knew.

04-00:10:17 Meeker: There was a museum in Paris.

04-00:10:18 Bartholomew: The Cernuschi and he was a curator there.

04-00:10:20 Meeker: At the Cernuschi. Yeah. So maybe we can talk about a couple of these other exhibitions that follow after this. You say that you played a role in installation of a “Flower from Every Meadow” in 1973. Can you describe that exhibition?

04-00:10:44 Bartholomew: That was a show from Asia House. I guess we used the Jade Room a lot.

04-00:10:56 Meeker: Can you describe the architecture of the Jade Room because it was sort of unique, wasn’t it?

04-00:11:00 Bartholomew: That was a long rectangular room with a donut in the center. It is a circular room hung from the ceiling so it wasn’t touching the floor. And inside the donut was very dark and we display all the beautiful jade pieces in there. But you can also show paintings inside.

04-00:11:19 Meeker: Oh, you could?

04-00:11:20 Bartholomew: It’s curved. Curved glass. Yeah.

04-00:11:24 Meeker: Do you know who came up with that particular design because that’s pretty unique and daring, if you will, for museums at that point.

04-00:11:31 Bartholomew: Yeah. And they used the best material. They used teak from India. Beautiful gold velvet on the wall. Something Owings. It’s a famous San Francisco architect firm.

04-00:11:47 Meeker: Oh, Skidmore [Owings & Merrill].

04-00:11:48 Bartholomew: Skidmore. Yeah, Skidmore did it. And Cyril Magnin gave us money. I. Magnin jade room or J. Magnin jade room? I forgot. But after the old man died the family did not want to give us more money so eventually it was getting very dirty. So we have to take everything off. It was really too bad.

04-00:12:17 Meeker: Yeah. But that must have been one of the more popular sites of the museum.

04-00:12:21 Bartholomew: Yeah. You can check. I don’t know which Magnin it was. We called it the Magnin Jade Room.

04-00:12:29 Meeker: Yeah. There were different families. Related but different. So the “Flower from Every Meadow,” what kind of artwork was this?

04-00:12:38 Bartholomew: That was miniature Indian paintings, like this small. The most that big. And in those days you either do your own show or you take it from another museum. So this was a traveling show. And I did that and I did another one called— something painted sketches. Indian paintings.

04-00:13:02 Meeker: Indian drawing and paintings.

04-00:13:02 Bartholomew: Yeah, Indian Drawing and Painted Sketches. So both of them came from Asia House.

04-00:13:06 Meeker: Okay. So when you talk about installation of, that’s when you’re installing the pre-curated—

04-00:13:13 Bartholomew: Right.

04-00:13:13 Meeker: —or exhibits that have been curated elsewhere. Okay. That’s good. That’s a good clarification there. Okay. Maybe you can talk a little bit about the partnerships with other organizations. Asia House was out of New York.

04-00:13:27 Bartholomew: Asia House did not show the permanent collection. So every show was a special show and which they would use to travel outside later on. And another one was China Institute. So we took a lot of exhibitions from these two places because to do a show takes a lot of manpower. So it was cheaper just to get it from outside. But I remember in those days we do a show, everybody, all the curators would come help. Some wiped the glass at the last minute and did all these things to help. Now no, you just suffer alone.

04-00:14:10 Meeker: You work specifically within your department area?

04-00:14:14 Bartholomew: Yes.

04-00:14:15 Meeker: Right, interesting. Well, what about the one that we were talking about, the first—I’m talking about the Archeological Finds of the People’s Republic of China. This was 1975.

04-00:14:32 Bartholomew: That was a very last minute show and we had very little time, but somehow Shangraw pulled it off. And he was just working nights, like twenty-four hours designing the show. That was the first time we call in an outside consultant on design and I forgot her name but she worked for Owings. Skidmore Owings [& Merrill]. And I was gone because I was having my first baby. I came back before the opening because I was there cleaning glasses and pasting the baseboard on the wall. We had to do that kind of work. I was on my knees just pasting those things because you just didn’t have enough manpower. And my job was to also take care of the Chinese curators because not too many people could speak Mandarin in those days. And now I have to take care of them.

04-00:15:38 Meeker: So can you tell me a little bit, the story about the creation of this particular exhibit?

04-00:15:47 Bartholomew: This was created by another museum. It came from Washington. I guess this was the first show that came out from China. Yeah. And it was so popular—so popular in the East Coast that we wanted it. Usually you have like one year to prepare. This one we have literally months. But it was the biggest show we have ever done. And I remember we had the jade suit, the first jade suit that came to America. That was the one. And the velvet was $50 a yard, that I remembered. I was like, “Wow, so expensive!” It was a purple-ish velvet and with the dark green jade on it, it was so nice. Wow, we learned a lot from that show.

04-00:16:42 Meeker: Like?

04-00:16:43 Bartholomew: Crowd control because we never had to worry about that, and so many people came in. And one of the crowd control people wrote poetry as he watched all these people waiting. Somewhere in the house I still have a copy of that. And I remember they had to prepare special concerts outside to entertain these people while they waited in line.

04-00:17:10 Meeker: Well, the show comes on the heels of President Nixon visiting China.

04-00:17:15 Bartholomew: Yes.

04-00:17:15 Meeker: The opening of China. Is that why do you think there was such profound interest in the—

04-00:17:21 Bartholomew: Yes, I think so. And also I guess everybody wanted to see what Chinese art is like, coming out from China for the first time. And everybody came. White, Oriental, they all came. Yeah.

04-00:17:37 Meeker: You had mentioned there were Chinese curators here so they were the curators from the People’s Republic who came with—

04-00:17:45 Bartholomew: They came from the Palace Museum in Beijing. Yeah, they are all Mandarin speakers except for Director Mai and he was Cantonese so I was very happy. [laughter] At least I didn’t have to worry, because I could barely speak Mandarin in those days. And I remember I did a Cantonese recording. That was the first time, too, we had a recorded tour.

04-00:18:13 Meeker: Oh, so headphones that people could bring through the museum.

04-00:18:17 Bartholomew: Yeah. I did the Cantonese one.

04-00:18:18 Meeker: Interesting. What were some of the main attractions of this particular exhibit? What were the premier items?

04-00:18:29 Bartholomew: First of all, it’s all these wonderful things that you have heard about but have never seen, like the jade suit and then the famous flying horse, the bronze horse from Gansu Province. It wasn’t flying but it has its legs stepping on a swallow. So they call it the Flying Horse of Gansu. And what else? Oh, beautiful jade pieces. Just things that you have seen in archeological journals. Oh, it was really fun because you were dealing with Communists for the first time.

04-00:19:12 Meeker: Dealing with?

04-00:19:13 Bartholomew: Communists, not the curators. The curators were just scholars, not Communist. So there was a Mr. Xie from Washington. I remembered we had a first meeting in the library. He looked around and said, “What’s that flag doing there?” It was the Taiwan flag in our library.

04-00:19:35 Meeker: So it was the people like bureaucrats who were coming through.

04-00:19:39 Bartholomew: Yes. You always have politicians coming with them. So I remembered they went up to the Himalayan Gallery and they said, “Why is Tibet shown in the Indian Gallery?” And my director was very smart. And he said, “Well, the

curator is Chinese.” [laughter] So that stopped him. I mean, what’s that got to do with me?

04-00:20:03 Meeker: Were you forced to explain that or—

04-00:20:05 Bartholomew: No, he did. I didn’t have to. If I were forced to explain it, I would say it’s the religion. It’s the Buddhist religion that is connected to India. That’s why you put all these pieces together, and it is just not my museum, in every single museum Tibetan art is always in the Indian gallery.

04-00:20:21 Meeker: I wonder how this Chinese bureaucrat would have responded to that kind of reasoning.

04-00:20:26 Bartholomew: He would say Tibet is part of China, it should go back downstairs.

04-00:20:29 Meeker: Ah, interesting.

04-00:20:30 Bartholomew: Yes. Oh, they were really gung-ho in those days.

04-00:20:34 Meeker: Well, that actually brings up a pretty interesting question of when you arrive at the museum in ’68, there had already been, I guess, an understanding of how the art would be divided up.

04-00:20:46 Bartholomew: It’s already divided up.

04-00:20:48 Meeker: Yeah. Do you have any idea how those decisions were arrived at? Were they based on standard accepted scholarship of the day? Were there any decisions maybe that you had questions about?

04-00:21:02 Bartholomew: No. My only objection is how come Tibet was just given the end wall of the Indian gallery? It was because we didn’t have any curators in Tibet. You have a Chinese curator or a Japanese curator and China took over the entire ground floor. The Japanese curator took two-thirds of the second floor gallery, giving a small area to Southeast Asia and a slightly larger area to India. And the Tibetan things were just—if this were the Indian gallery, it was just the end wall. So when I came, I added more to the Tibetan section.

04-00:21:43 Meeker: So you were also the Southeast Asian curator for twenty years.

04-00:21:45 Bartholomew: Mm-hmm. I didn’t know anything about Southeast Asian art.

04-00:21:49 Meeker: Well, then, how did you manage to be curator during that period of time?

04-00:21:52 Bartholomew: Because somebody has to. So d’Argencé took care of anything Southeast Asian. He catalogued them, not me. Yeah. But the day to day business of installing things, I have to do it. Yeah.

04-00:22:05 Meeker: There’s quite a bit of overlap, however, between Southeast Asian and Indian Art.

04-00:22:11 Bartholomew: Yeah.

04-00:22:11 Meeker: In particular, you go to Angkor Wat and some of the—

04-00:22:15 Bartholomew: The same gods, Vishnu, Shiva.

04-00:22:19 Meeker: Yeah, and also the Buddhist representations, as well. To what extent were they translatable? Meaning the iconography was—

04-00:22:32 Bartholomew: Iconography.

04-00:22:32 Meeker: —very similar?

04-00:22:33 Bartholomew: Sort of, yeah.

04-00:22:35 Meeker: Okay. What are some of the main differences? What were your main challenges or things that you had to keep in mind acting as steward over both the Indian as well as Southeast Asian collections?

04-00:22:50 Bartholomew: You have to really study some of the history. And I was just not interested because I’m already in Chinese art and I have added India to it and Tibet. I just cannot handle Southeast Asia. It’s just not Cambodia. It’s also Thailand, it’s Java. Philippines. It’s just too much. One person can’t do it. I don’t know the history. I don’t know their religion. So it’s extremely difficult for me.

04-00:23:22 Meeker: Because as Buddhism and Hinduism travel, and then you go down to Indonesia and you also have Islam, as they travel to Southeast Asia—

04-00:23:31 Bartholomew: Just changes. In the iconography.

04-00:23:35 Meeker: So it’s not only the belief systems but it’s also the iconography.

04-00:23:39 Bartholomew: Right. And also I find Southeast Asian, the stone sculptures, very stiff compared to the Indian ones.

04-00:23:46 Meeker: Oh, really?

04-00:23:47 Bartholomew: They are beautiful, yes, but they are stiff. You can’t split yourself so fine. I felt myself just split apart because it’s too much. Because all these years I was given work in Chinese art, even though I did not have the title of Chinese curator until the very end. Then they gave me the title of Chinese Decorative Art. But nobody took care of snuff bottles. I have to take care of snuff bottles, and anything. “Nobody wants it, Terese can do it.” It’s always like this.

04-00:24:26 Meeker: Or the pottery, for instance.

04-00:24:28 Bartholomew: Yixing [i-Hsing] ware is my own liking, so it doesn’t matter. The museum didn’t really show it until I did my exhibition.

04-00:24:36 Meeker: As an art historian, you’re comparing the Southeast Asian versus the Indian art, do you see that Indian art maybe has more influence from ancient Greece and some of that influence begins to dissipate by the time you get to Southeast Asia or is there something else at work there?

04-00:25:01 Bartholomew: Only one part of India was influenced by Greco Roman art. That’s the Gandharan area. Because by this time in India they had their own art style developing at the same time. So you have two types of Buddha image. The native Indian one and the Greco-Roman one. Because in the workshop in Gandhara, people were trained in the Greco-Roman style. So when they made a Buddha image, they had no idea what Buddha looked like and so they made him to look like Apollo. But in India itself, you have the Buddha image and they emphasized the inner breath. You can see the sculpture, it has inner breath in it. It’s very different. It’s more simple. They don’t stress on modeling of the body that much. But at the same time, both sides are developing.

04-00:25:48 Meeker: The way that the museum now defines Asia is going as far over as Turkey, I believe, and, of course, also inclusive of a lot of Pacific islands.

04-00:26:07 Bartholomew: But they don’t show.

04-00:26:07 Meeker: But they don’t show?

04-00:26:08 Bartholomew: No. Ethnic art was not included.

04-00:26:14 Meeker: Do you ever remember there being debates or conversations amongst you and your fellow curators or d’Argencé about just how Asia should be defined?

04-00:26:27 Bartholomew: No. I think the subject came up when Forrest McGill came. And also I think maybe Rand Castile, too, about what we should collect, what should not be included. I think it was later. In the beginning we didn’t discuss this. It was kind of accepted. There’s certain things you just don’t show.

04-00:26:53 Meeker: And when this debate happened a bit later on in the 1980s, for instance, what were the terms of the debate?

04-00:27:02 Bartholomew: Curators were to write down a wish list, what do you wish to collect? And then the subject came, do we want ethnic art?

04-00:27:13 Meeker: What do you mean by ethnic art?

04-00:27:17 Bartholomew: Okay. Philippines. We show oil paintings from the Philippines but we don’t show local weaving and we don’t show the weapons or the granary gods, the Ifugao carvings. We don’t show those. Those are supposed to be primitive or ethnic. And, for example, Taiwan, you would show traditional artist paintings and all that but the Taiwanese, their own indigenous culture, again, woodcarvings somewhat similar to the Filipino ones, you don’t show those. They’re supposed to be ethnic.

04-00:28:17 Meeker: So there was a definition or a distinction made between what might be considered historical—

04-00:28:24 Bartholomew: Like fine arts.

04-00:28:24 Meeker: —but fine art and then kind of archeological finds.

04-00:28:28 Bartholomew: Yes, archeological finds are okay, as long as they belong to the fine arts section.

04-00:28:36 Meeker: In the United States they might call it folk art. Is that the distinction?

04-00:28:42 Bartholomew: Right.

04-00:28:43 Meeker: So folk art wasn’t shown necessarily. So when you get to the 1980s, there’s maybe a desire to show more sort of folk art. It maybe was not the official fine art of the era.

04-00:28:58 Bartholomew: Well, it’s like you’re supposed to cover the Philippines but you don’t have enough fine arts. And there are other things and nobody is interested in the ethnic side. I was but I’m not the Philippine curator so I can’t—by that time we have a Southeast Asian curator. The demarcation is not clear. Why do we have Filipino oil paintings? That I think belonged to the Museum of Modern Art. These are modern paintings.

04-00:29:32 Meeker: So it was primarily this notion that Philippines is a united nation today, that for representational purposes, given actually the Philippine perhaps population in the United States and given that Philippines is understood to be in Asia, of course we have to have a Philippine collection, even if perhaps—

04-00:30:00 Bartholomew: And people do complain how come we don’t have a Philippine art display. Now, for a while they were even thinking of buying some Santos.

04-00:30:09 Meeker: So that is?

04-00:30:10 Bartholomew: That’s from Philippines, all the Catholic sculptures. But that didn’t happen.

04-00:30:17 Meeker: In order to bolster the Philippine collection?

04-00:30:19 Bartholomew: Yeah, mm-hmm.

04-00:30:22 Meeker: This is really interesting, the debates around collecting. But it also intersects not simply with collection, because if it was simply on aesthetic grounds or significant grounds in the overall arc of sort of world art history, these Philippine art works probably would not qualify?

04-00:30:51 Bartholomew: But sometimes weird things happen. For the longest time there were two jars, stone jars which I considered very ethnic and they were on display. And one of them had human remains in there. These are for holding ashes and bones.

Why did we end up with those two when you’re telling everybody that you don’t collect ethnic art. That’s definitely ethnic. I don’t know. So they can’t stick to their guns.

04-00:31:24 Meeker: You have curatorial art history imperatives, right, but then you also have—the museum exists within a larger community and there are representational kind of identity politics, if you will, needs overarching the work of the curators. Is this an example of this? Almost like two different languages or two different imperatives come—

04-00:31:56 Bartholomew: Yeah. Because we have a lot of Filipinos in San Francisco. But I would think they would be very insulted to have those two jars there.

04-00:32:04 Meeker: Why is that?

04-00:32:05 Bartholomew: It’s like something you take from the cemetery.

04-00:32:07 Meeker: Okay. Yeah, so it’s like a coffin or something.

04-00:32:10 Bartholomew: Exactly.

04-00:32:15 Meeker: Did you enter into these debates? Did you have a particular point of view about whether the museum should collect and display folk art or whether it should focus more on the fine arts?

04-00:32:29 Bartholomew: We all did some but it usually is decided by Forrest, decided by Rand. But we all had our say. And for me, anything that is finely done I think should be in the museum.

04-00:32:43 Meeker: Okay. So you were not as interested in making the distinction between folk and fine art?

04-00:32:47 Bartholomew: No. Because there are a lot of gray areas. I guess the biggest debate was my gallery because we have Tibetan art and then we have Sino-Tibetan art. So when Forrest McGill came, we had huge fights. Forrest’s idea was that Tibetan art made in China could not be considered Tibetan Art, just as an

Impressionist painting by a German painter cannot be considered an Impressionist painting. I said, “You can’t make statements like this because show me what is pure Tibetan art. There isn’t such a thing.” Many Tibetan pieces were made by Nepalese artists, itinerant artists who came to Tibet. So what do you call that? Nepalese Tibetan art? And the Chinese emperors, some of them were followers of Tibetan Buddhism. They had all these religious objects made as gifts to give to Tibet and they are very beautiful. And these were accepted by Tibet. They’re all over the Potala and in major temples, treasured by the Tibetans. Forrest felt that the Chinese made objects should not be shown in the Tibetan gallery. I said that the Chinese would feel that these were Tibetan objects. If I had listened to him, half of my gallery would be empty. All those large sculptures, they were all made by the imperial workshops. They were commissioned by the Qianlong emperor, the impressive ones. So it was just impossible.

04-00:34:26 Meeker: Did these kinds of debates, did they happen quite regularly or—

04-00:34:30 Bartholomew: It happened a lot after Forrest came and we have hip roaring fights about such things.

04-00:34:36 Meeker: Are there some other examples that there were conflicts about?

04-00:34:41 Bartholomew: Another thing is use of words. He did not let us use foreign words. And he said, “Oh, people would come and take one look and would run away.” First of all, people who would bother to read the labels want to learn and they won’t run away just because there’s a foreign word there. If you explain it, why not use it. And there’s no harm teaching people some foreign words. For example, we have a beautiful Indian sculpture in the Indian gallery. I called it a yakshi because it’s a tree spirit. So in my label I explained what is a yakshi, and that she stood in front of an Ashoka tree. And why is it an Ashoka tree? Because you can see the particular type of leaves. You know what tree it is, and this is one of the trees that if a beautiful girl kicked it with her ankle, it would burst into bloom. So I talked about it in my first label. So when Forrest became Indian curator I looked at the new label and I said, “What is he talking about?” Because the yakshi word didn’t even come into it. Nothing about tree spirit, nothing about the Ashoka tree. You are depriving the public of this knowledge.

04-00:35:57 Meeker: How did he change it? What did it say? Do you recall?

04-00:36:00 Bartholomew: No, I was very mad when I read it. The label didn’t mention that it was a tree spirit and that it was kicking the tree, that’s why it burst into bloom. Nothing like this. These are standard things that other museums would talk about.

04-00:36:15 Meeker: And so McGill came in under Rand Castile, right, or was that before?

04-00:36:20 Bartholomew: No, it was when Emily [Sano] became director.

04-00:36:22 Meeker: Well, it’s interesting. We need to chart the long history of the museum. And a lot of people talk about d’Argencé as being very academic, that he really wanted it to be a scholarly museum and that later on the museum trades that in a bit to be a more popular museum.

04-00:36:49 Bartholomew: Right. Because this is not just us. It’s every single museum. In the d’Argencé days, the other museums were like that, too. For example, you never see a contemporary show. It would never be shown in d’Argencé days. It just won’t. And so when Emily came, this was the time that everybody’s dumbing down the labels. And I just don’t believe in it. I say if the foreign word works, use it. Just explain what it is. So there were big fights.

04-00:37:27 Meeker: Well, it’s interesting. There is this question, right, about needing to make the collection understandable to the broadest possible audience, and the implications for that, I imagine, maybe come down to financial, right?

04-00:37:44 Bartholomew: They think that people won’t come if the labels are too highbrow. They use the term “Joe Sixpack.” And my idea is if Joe Sixpack comes in, he won’t even read the labels, so why bother? Because people who really want to learn are the ones reading the labels. I may be old fashioned but that’s the way it is.

04-00:38:05 Meeker: Well, there is this change that starts to happen, particularly with the Asian Art Museum. The first decade that you were there, it’s largely funded by city funds.

04-00:38:17 Bartholomew: Mostly.

04-00:38:18 Meeker: Mostly, not entirely. And so I would think that there would be a lot of freedom to do what you as a professional thought best. But later on, when Proposition 13 passes and city funds begin to dry up, there’s more of an imperative for the museum to raise funds, both from large donors as well as from increased gate fees or increased number of people paying gate fees.

04-00:38:51 Bartholomew: Yeah, it used to be free.

04-00:38:53 Meeker: It used to be free. So it certainly is not like that now.

04-00:38:56 Bartholomew: No.

04-00:38:57 Meeker: I think it’s $15 or something.

04-00:38:59 Bartholomew: Really?

04-00:39:00 Meeker: I don’t know. I can’t remember. But it’s not cheap. And the idea is then that you’re pursuing not so much a scholarly or an academic museum but it’s more of a popular venue for the arts and education. Did you experience this transition like that?

04-00:39:24 Bartholomew: Yes. And beginning with the education department and dealing with the public.

04-00:39:32 Meeker: When did that come in? The education department?

04-00:39:36 Bartholomew: It came in when I first came. Shortly after, we had Diana Turner, the first education curator. But her job was mainly training the docents. For the longest time, that’s what education curators do in the AAM. But now, no. Now they are in charge of programs. All these interesting things going on in the museum, teaching the children, they’re all from the education department and I think it’s very important. Because you get the kids interested and when they grow up they will come back to the museum. And every time we have an exhibition, in the old days we just did it our way, but now we discuss with the education section. So there are more meetings.

04-00:40:29 Meeker: How do you think the meetings with the education curators influenced the look and feel of the exhibits or the content of the exhibits?

04-00:40:42 Bartholomew: Not really the content but the interpretation because you always have the education room attached to an exhibition. So the education curator has his own ideas. Sometimes we like it, sometimes we don’t.

04-00:41:00 Meeker: What were some of the areas of common understanding? What were some of the shared values between the education curator and the arts curators?

04-00:41:11 Bartholomew: Mainly their job is to explain the show to the public. Our job is to write labels but they have to explain it in some other ways. For example, when we did a furniture show, the education department brought in some craftsmen who made samples of joinery, Chinese joinery. They don’t use nails. It’s

dovetailing. So it was interesting to pass those things for the kids to look at, see that’s how the table is made without any nails. This is how you join the wood together. That was very good. But then at the same time, this curator decided to show what houses are like in China. He should be showing houses where these furniture came from. Instead he showed some very interesting circular houses in one small part of China where they live in a circular household. Round houses, and show how the people live inside, which I feel has nothing to do with the show. It’s interesting but it’s just very different.

04-00:42:22 Meeker: That’s actually a very good point because for you as a curator, and your colleagues, who are also arts curators, you’ve spent your whole life identifying the specific date and place and possibly artist and then for an education curator to come in and pull in something that ostensibly is from China—

04-00:42:45 Bartholomew: Right but is completely—

04-00:42:47 Meeker: Culturally completely different. How would you resolve something like that?

04-00:42:53 Bartholomew: It wasn’t resolved. No use fighting. Just let them do whatever they please.

04-00:43:00 Meeker: So did it feel like education became—

04-00:43:04 Bartholomew: More and more important.

04-00:43:06 Meeker: Perhaps more important than the actual curation of the art itself?

04-00:43:10 Bartholomew: Yeah.

04-00:43:11 Meeker: When do you think that kind of transition started to happen?

04-00:43:15 Bartholomew: Nineties. Or maybe even earlier. Yeah. And then they began to have a say on what labels should say. Every time before an exhibition, before the labels were typed up, we always have a meeting with the chief curator and with the education department. So lots of fighting took place in those meetings.

04-00:43:37 Meeker: Interesting. What was some of the substance of that?

04-00:43:50 Bartholomew: Again, words. Yeah. Foreign words. Giving them too much information.

04-00:44:00 Meeker: The education curators that come in, what kind of background do they typically have?

04-00:44:07 Bartholomew: I don’t really know. No. Some of them may have some art history. I don’t know. Do we have education background for the education curators? There’s no such thing. You don’t go—

04-00:44:24 Meeker: Well, you can get a degree in education.

04-00:44:25 Bartholomew: Yeah, you can get a degree in education but you don’t go and study art to be an education curator. I don’t think that I saw something like that. I don’t know.

04-00:44:36 Meeker: So it seems like they’re really coming from a different educational background perhaps.

04-00:44:40 Bartholomew: Yeah.

04-00:44:43 Meeker: Switching gears a little bit. We’ve got a few more minutes left here on this tape. In the early years, we talked—how should I put this? So in the early years one of the issues that comes up in the meeting minutes or the Brundage papers actually is security at the museum. And part of this has to do with the fact that it was the Brundage Collection as part of the de Young Museum. And then I think, what was it, 1969, which it becomes the Center for Asian Art and Culture and then ’74, ’75 it becomes the Asian Art Museum. But when it was the Brundage Collection, and then even when it was sort of in its early years as a separate museum, security was a big concern. There were some thefts. I wonder how you as a curator sought to protect the collection both when it was on display and then protect it from theft or damage.

04-00:46:03 Bartholomew: We have two guards, one upstairs, one downstairs, and they’re supposed to walk around non-stop. But it’s a large area. And most of them ended up looking over the courtyard at pretty girls, which is true. And so I think one theft occurred earlier. It was a Japanese painting, very tiny, and you can just roll it up, slip it up your sleeve, and that’s it, and somebody walked off with it. So after that, everything was under Plexiglas. So you kind of learn from your mistakes. And then one time I had to put up a little display just over the weekend and we used ordinary screws and apparently somebody just unscrewed it and stole one sculpture. I’m still looking for it.

It was a little Hanuman and I felt so bad. And after that every case had at least three or four different security screws. So you just learn from your mistakes.

What was interesting was one theft that happened in the Haight-Ashbury days, early seventies. It was not upstairs. These sculptures were being conserved in the conservation lab and there was an open grate on top of the windows. The conservator had a plant outside so he opened the window to water his plant and he didn’t close the window. Maybe it was a hot day. Two boys high on drugs came in, saw the grate, opened the grate and came in to the lab and took away those two sculptures. They’re really ugly guardians, tomb guardians from the Han Dynasty. And we sent out notices. Nothing happened. Apparently they got scared and they hid those two sculptures in the parents’ basement in the Sunset area. When Rand Castile was director, suddenly the police came and told us that those things have been found but the statute of limitations was gone so you can’t even accuse them. But they did drag this boy, who was a young man then, to see Rand. Apparently he was having a nasty divorce and the wife went and told the cops that, “My husband stole something from the Asian Art Museum.” They actually find the two pieces in good condition and they were returned to us. There are not too many thefts. So that’s three. The fourth one was netsuke.

04-00:48:41 Meeker: Was?

04-00:48:41 Bartholomew: Netsuke. The beautiful little Japanese toggles called netsuke.

04-00:48:49 Meeker: Netsuke?

04-00:48:49 Bartholomew: But we refer to them as netsuke. N-E-T-S-U-K-E. And, again, I don’t think the screws were the special security ones. This was done over several days. When the guard wasn’t there, the thieves would remove one screw, and the next day would come and remove the rest. They stole a lot—and these thieves were pretty stupid. They went to Union Street to sell to a dealer, and the dealer took one look and saw the museum numbers written right there. So he called the museum and we got almost everything back. One we didn’t, but the police came and arrested the people and went to their home and searched and found the remaining one. So these are all the thefts. The only things that did not come back were a little bronze Hanuman statue and the scroll. So it’s not that bad for how many years now?

04-00:49:49 Meeker: Yeah. It’s interesting. I imagine the market in Asian antiques now is pretty hot and some of the material there would be considered priceless.

04-00:50:02 Bartholomew: Yeah. But the things inside the big cases, there’s no way you can go into them because there’s a doorway and beside that there’s so many other obstruction. And the standing cases, if you use museum screws, there’s no way they can

open it. You need special tools to open those. It’s pretty safe and all the thangkas, they’re all under Plexiglas.

04-00:50:26 Meeker: Well, one of the problems with the original thefts that happened was the fact that d’Argencé thought that the de Young was being negligent in their duties around the Brundage Collection.

04-00:50:41 Bartholomew: It’s just not enough guards. One guard cannot circulate the whole area. It is true.

04-00:50:47 Meeker: Do you know if that changed?

04-00:50:50 Bartholomew: Even when we left, there were only two guards always. Yeah. Now that we have moved to the Asian, then we have our own guards. And, of course, it’s very expensive to have so many guards. In the old days we didn’t pay for the janitors, we didn’t pay for the guards, we didn’t pay for the museum packer.

04-00:51:09 Meeker: Those all are paid by—

04-00:51:11 Bartholomew: All by de Young.

04-00:51:12 Meeker: By the de Young Museum. Okay. Up until you move from de Young to the new museum in Civic Center, I wonder what was the relationship like between the employees who—

04-00:51:29 Bartholomew: The curators? Huh?

04-00:51:29 Meeker: Well, who worked primarily for the Brundage and then the Asian Art Museum.

04-00:51:33 Bartholomew: We are stepchildren.

04-00:51:35 Meeker: You were stepchildren to the de Young?

04-00:51:35 Bartholomew: Uh-huh, uh-huh.

04-00:51:37 Meeker: It’s kind of interesting because by almost any measure the Asian Art Museum’s collection is more valuable and prestigious than the de Young. Was

there an understanding amongst the curators of the de Young about how substantial and important the Asian Art Museum collection was?

04-00:52:02 Bartholomew: No, we don’t talk to each other. In my days there was one de Young curator who would come over to have coffee with us, Graeme Keith, the decorative arts curator. But none of the other curators would come over and the directors hated each other. And because I came originally from de Young Museum, so I have some friends over there. But we have nothing to do with each other, which is too bad.

04-00:52:33 Meeker: Yeah. What do you think could have been a productive relationship? Like what sort of ideas could have been exchanged?

04-00:52:40 Bartholomew: Yeah, and do shows together. But it’s mainly the directors. If they don’t talk to each other, we can’t do anything.

04-00:52:50 Meeker: Interesting. That didn’t change when Castile becomes director either, I guess.

04-00:52:54 Bartholomew: No.

04-00:52:55 Meeker: Or Emily Sano for that matter.

04-00:52:58 Bartholomew: When Emily came was good because Emily and the director of de Young, I forgot his name now, they both came from Texas. That’s when directors started screaming at staff. We didn’t have that before.

04-00:53:13 Meeker: Okay. Well, we’ll get into that a little bit later. Let’s see if there’s anything else I want to cover today. I guess just in a couple of minutes. I believe Brundage dies in 1975. What kind of direct interaction did you have with him? Before then.

04-00:54:09 Bartholomew: I did not because I was a latecomer. So I was not among the first batch of people. But apparently he was really nice to the first group of people and they worked very hard for the opening. I believe he gave each of them a bonus.

04-00:54:24 Meeker: A personal bonus?

04-00:54:25 Bartholomew: Yeah, a personal bonus after the opening. It was like a family relationship and I’m sorry I missed all that because I came so late.

04-00:54:37 Meeker: So when you arrived in ’68, how did people talk about him? Or was he—

04-00:54:42 Bartholomew: Oh, they called him Mr. B. They all loved him.

04-00:54:45 Meeker: They called him Mr. B?

04-00:54:46 Bartholomew: Yeah. And d’Argencé wrote an article about his relationship to Brundage, like a son and a father. They had a very good relationship. And I know Roger [Broussel], the conservator, also liked Brundage very much. And Brundage would come and he would just go directly to d’Argencé office and he won’t talk to us. Yeah. I remember at that time that was the beginning of the circular puzzles.

04-00:55:13 Meeker: What’s that?

04-00:55:14 Bartholomew: The puzzles, jigsaw puzzles, the circular ones. So we were given one of Japanese art from the Newark Museum and I remember we were all putting it together during our break time. Mr. Brundage came in and said, “Is that what you do in my museum?” That was my first meeting with him.

04-00:55:33 Meeker: Was he joking or—?

04-00:55:35 Bartholomew: He was joking. [laughter] Yeah.

04-00:55:40 Meeker: I know that he came out and sometimes he would just come into the museum and enjoy his collection. And then I also know that he would come out for—

04-00:55:52 Bartholomew: Buying things.

04-00:55:54 Meeker: Buying things but also for galas and celebrations or fundraisers. As staff, were you invited to these fundraisers?

04-00:56:04 Bartholomew: Yes, we were invited.

04-00:56:05 Meeker: What were your thoughts about that? Was it something that you were pleased to go to or did it feel like work?

04-00:56:11 Bartholomew: It was work.

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04-00:56:12 Meeker: And what were you expected to do at these events?

04-00:56:13 Bartholomew: You were always placed strategically. You’re supposed to talk to the people next to you. Like talk them out of something.

04-00:56:23 Meeker: Oh, okay. Do you remember some examples of people who you were supposed to engage with?

04-00:56:29 Bartholomew: They always put me next to George Hopper Fitch because he was the miniature collector and since I was the Indian curator I’m supposed to talk more things out of him and they always put me next to Mr. Nagle. Ed Nagle, Oroweat [bakery]. Yeah, because he liked me so they made sure that I sat next to him to and ask for more artwork.

04-00:57:00 Meeker: What kind of material did he collect?

04-00:57:01 Bartholomew: Oh, Indian sculptures. Yeah, he already gave us a lot. He was very nice to us. Yeah. And I did a show of his gifts.

04-00:57:13 Meeker: Okay. Well, we should probably end for today. All right.

[End of Interview]

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Interview #3 April 25, 2013 Audio File 5

05-00:00:12 Meeker: Today is the 25th of April 2013. This is Martin Meeker interviewing Terese Bartholomew for the Asian Art Museum Oral History Project and we’re on tape number five. So you were just showing me a couple of slide images from the original galleries of the Asian Art Museum when it was in Golden Gate Park and you were remarking on the distinction between how spare the gallery display was, how the pieces of artwork had a lot of breathing room between them. And you said that this was part of Brundage’s ideal. I wonder if you can explain this a little bit.

05-00:01:50 Bartholomew: Brundage must have been influenced by Japanese art or the Japanese galleries in Japan because he just wanted lots of breathing space. He wanted air around his sculptures. So when I first came to the museum, the whole museum was painted a pale green color. It was pretty bad. Because it was especially bad up on the second floor when we did not get enough light. It was very cold and the docents really complained bitterly. But the display was very pleasant, though, especially in the sculpture gallery because one side you have the window showing the tea garden. It was quite nice. Just a few sculptures standing there.

05-00:02:31 Meeker: Well, it’s very dramatic, right?

05-00:02:33 Bartholomew: Yes.

05-00:02:35 Meeker: And so what is it about the Japanese art that you described that related to this original display schematic?

05-00:02:46 Bartholomew: It’s like a Zen garden. You just have one or two rocks, right, lots of sand around. It’s just like less is more. So that’s what Brundage like. And Yoshiko Kakudo, our first Japanese curator, was very good in designing galleries. In fact, you still see her hand in the Japanese galleries now because her successor followed Kakudo’s way of display. Very few objects and very beautiful. In fact, I’m very jealous because my Himalayan gallery was the last gallery to be set up so there’s no space for it, and then in the new Asian, Himalayan art was given a very tiny space, so I just crowded everything in there.

05-00:03:30 Meeker: Where did you learn about the art of display in museums?

05-00:03:35 Bartholomew: You just learn by working in the museum, because I didn’t go to design school. Nowadays we have designers, but in the old days we worked with the preparators and some of them were very creative. So whenever I have to set

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up exhibition, I sit down and discuss with them and come up with some ideas. [Clarence] Shangraw gave us the basic instructions. He was the chief curator in those days. Find the most important piece, make that your focal point. Make sure in every case there is one important piece in it, things like that. Give special importance to one piece.

05-00:04:12 Meeker: Did you ever find that difficult? I’ve worked in archives and I have an appreciation for art and I imagine there’s this other tendency, which is to want to show everything and to see the value in many different pieces and not want to exclude one because it’s hard to sometimes compare apples and oranges or prefer oranges to apples, right?

05-00:04:39 Bartholomew: Well, the thing is you know it will look like a sales window at Macy’s, so you have to be careful. But luckily I am gifted in one way. I can look at ten things, I can quickly pick out the best one. So it’s very easy for me to pick objects for display. I don’t have to worry about it.

05-00:05:02 Meeker: But when it comes to taking ten items, right—

05-00:05:06 Bartholomew: You just pick the best one.

05-00:05:09 Meeker: Well, how do you do that? Because particularly if those ten items are not exactly the same. Like ten different linga, for instance. Right. It might be easiest to pick the best of those ten. But let’s say the pieces are ranging, in different subject matter, using different media. How do you pick?

05-00:05:29 Bartholomew: Oh, that’s difficult. If it is different subject matter, different media, well, you just look at it, not as a curator but as just an ordinary museumgoer. What would be attractive to them? Of course, I tend to go into some very esoteric subjects but other people would not appreciate it, so you just kick those out.

05-00:05:52 Meeker: So you really do need to put yourself in the position of the museumgoer?

05-00:05:56 Bartholomew: Yes. Yeah, because the museum is for those people, not just for us.

05-00:06:00 Meeker: Is it sort of aesthetic beauty that you’re looking for in that case or is it the most ancient piece of artwork or is it piece of artwork that has the most interesting story behind it?

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05-00:06:14 Bartholomew: Both. All three. It has to be beautiful to begin with and then historically it must be important. And, of course, we need something to talk about. So I have to make sure there’s something for me to talk about. Because you just can’t go into ecstasy about the movement and the balance. Other people won’t understand that. Yeah.

05-00:06:36 Meeker: Do you recall any instances in which you were putting together perhaps a permanent gallery where you realized that there was one space left and you had a couple of items and you had a difficult time deciding which one should go on display?

05-00:06:53 Bartholomew: No.

05-00:06:54 Meeker: No, nothing in particular?

05-00:06:56 Bartholomew: No. And also, we don’t make the final decision. It has to go through the chief curator and the director. So usually it’s pretty well set in concrete by the time we take the objects upstairs.

05-00:07:13 Meeker: So when you present your selections, for instance, to the chief curator and I assume Shangraw in early years would present those to the director, d’Argencé. Did they accept your recommendations in most cases?

05-00:07:32 Bartholomew: In most cases.

05-00:07:34 Meeker: Well, then maybe tell me about some cases, if you remember, where they had difference of opinion.

05-00:07:40 Bartholomew: No, usually they agreed with what I wanted to put on display. The only thing they didn’t like was the way I displayed them because Shangraw had specific ideas. Usually he had very good ideas. We just set it up temporary and he would come and say, “Oh, no, move this one here. Move there.” He had the final say.

05-00:08:01 Meeker: Almost like an editor.

05-00:08:02 Bartholomew: Yeah. You don’t argue with him because usually he was right. [laughter]

05-00:08:08 Meeker: [laughter] So you felt like you’d learned from him in those cases?

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05-00:08:08 Bartholomew: Oh, definitely. I was a beginner. I didn’t know anything. Just graduated from UCLA. You just know a tiny bit of art history, that’s all. You don’t know anything about display. No.

05-00:08:20 Meeker: It’s interesting. When you said that Brundage advocated for a more spare or perhaps Japanese-like display, that’s interesting because in some ways that runs also counter to what he also wanted, which was he wanted as many of his items on display as possible. In the archives there’s recognition that he was disappointed that not more of his collection was put on display.

05-00:08:49 Bartholomew: [laughter] That was funny. I don’t know why he would say something like that. Yeah.

05-00:08:57 Meeker: Maybe it was just a matter of the museum not being big enough.

05-00:09:02 Bartholomew: Could be. No, because I was always told that’s the way Mr. B wanted it. That’s what we called him, Mr. B.

05-00:09:10 Meeker: So you never had interaction with him where he said something about wanting more of his permanent collection on display?

05-00:09:18 Bartholomew: No. He would have said it to d’Argencé, not to us.

05-00:09:21 Meeker: Yeah. Do you remember when he died? Did that have an impact on the work that was done at the museum from a curatorial standpoint?

05-00:09:32 Bartholomew: No.

05-00:09:33 Meeker: He died in’ 75, so you would have been there for six or seven years at that point.

05-00:09:37 Bartholomew: Yeah. He died in’ 75 and we were very surprised because many things came from Chicago to us, and among them were jewelry. And I said, “How come his wife didn’t keep this?” There were jadeite necklaces and things like that. And apparently she didn’t like Chinese art so she got rid of everything. So it all came to us.

05-00:10:00 Meeker: So we’ll talk about the way in which, perhaps, when the new galleries were installed and the display differs in those from the historic approach a bit later.

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But I actually want to kind of back up a little bit. I hope you’ll indulge me and tell me the story of how you and your husband met. Because it’s interesting and I know that it also comes into play because of his career and his expertise and I know that your interests merged around botany, for instance. And I wonder if you can just tell me that story.

05-00:10:49 Bartholomew: When I was a teenager in Hong Kong I played the violin and I was crazy about the violin. I am still crazy about it. So once I had some money I started taking violin lessons at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and there I met other foreign students. They’re all piano students. And at that time they had a teacher from UCLA coming up to teach Chinese music at the San Francisco Conservatory. And I happened to be back in Hong Kong the same year and I picked up some old instruments that were left to me, Chinese instruments. I got them fixed and I had some lessons in Hong Kong. I had seven days of lessons continuously. So I came back and the girls were telling me, “Oh, we have a new orchestra. You have to join us.” I said, “What? A Chinese orchestra?” They said, “Yeah. Well, you have to bring your instrument and we’ll play.” And I said, “No, no, no. I just had seven days of lessons.” And they say, “No, no, no, we are all beginners. Don’t worry about it.” So I went for the first class and played for the professor and it was fine.

05-00:11:55 Meeker: What instruments were you playing?

05-00:11:56 Bartholomew: The erhu. This is the two stringed violin. So it’s like half the violin. It was pretty easy, and I saw this blond boy who was very quiet and he played six or seven instruments. I was very impressed but I wasn’t about to do anything because my mom taught me as a girl you should sit on the pedestal, and let the other guys come. [laughter] So I didn’t do anything. But finally after he started talking to me, we got engaged. [laughter]

05-00:12:25 Meeker: Right then and there? [laughter]

05-00:12:26 Bartholomew: Yes. My parents were horrified.

05-00:12:30 Meeker: What was his name?

05-00:12:31 Bartholomew: Bruce Bartholomew, and he was getting his PhD from Stanford in botany, in biology. And so we had two interests. He was very interested in Chinese art. All through our marriage he really encouraged me in all my sins. Like when I worked on Yixing ware, he would quickly get me all the books and the two of us started buying Yixing pieces. And when I changed to Tibetan art, he also got interested in thangkas and commissioned some. So he is always into what

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I am doing and I am always crazy about flowers because I grew up in a garden in Hong Kong. So he helped me a lot in my identification of floral motifs.

05-00:13:19 Meeker: Didn’t you say that your father or grandfather had owned a florist shop?

05-00:13:22 Bartholomew: My father.

05-00:13:23 Meeker: Your father did. Yeah. What was your husband’s background? How was it that he learned to play six Chinese instruments and already had such an interest in Asian culture?

05-00:13:38 Bartholomew: His grandparents (maternal grandparents) were working in the Philippines and his grandmother was quite an avid collector of Chinese art and everything else. Decorative art. His mother was born in the Philippines. So they always had an interest in Asian things. And when we met, he actually took some of his pieces for me to identify. So in his family there was always an interest. And at UCLA we had a very good music teacher called Mr. Lui Tsen Yuan and he taught ethnomusicology. So my husband took classes from him and one instrument led to another. He ended up learning all six or seven instruments. One of them was the qin, which is what they call the Chinese lute. It has seven strings on it, and he played that. And I was very impressed because in ancient China, to be able to play the lute is one of the attributes of a scholar. I said, “Wow, this foreign man can play this ancient instrument.”

05-00:14:43 Meeker: When did you meet him? Was it when you were in graduate school or after?

05-00:14:47 Bartholomew: No, I’m already working in the museum and taking lessons, taking violin lessons. I worked in ’68. So that’s ’71.

05-00:14:57 Meeker: Okay. So he went to UCLA before you were there for graduate school?

05-00:15:01 Bartholomew: No, we were there at the same time. But we didn’t meet because he was in the science section and I was in the art section. But we came up the same year.

05-00:15:13 Meeker: Interesting. You said that the response of your parents to this marriage was not positive.

05-00:15:18 Bartholomew: First of all, they didn’t expect me to get married. They thought I would be a spinster the rest of my life.

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05-00:15:25 Meeker: Why is that?

05-00:15:26 Bartholomew: Because I was kind of like very centered on what I was doing. I didn’t want to be bothered by boys wasting my time. Another thing was that boys from my age group from Hong Kong, they have absolutely no culture. They don’t know anything about western culture, don’t know anything about Chinese culture. I wasn’t going to marry somebody like that. I need somebody to share my interests. So I had a big long list of requirements and I was not about to waste my time on anybody. So when was that? That was ’68 I started working. Sixty-nine, ’70, ’71. Like three years later. Yeah.

05-00:16:02 Meeker: So you were in the eyes of your parents a professional working woman?

05-00:16:07 Bartholomew: Yes. They already gave up on me because I would not be interested in the boys that they introduced to me.

05-00:16:14 Meeker: Interesting. So they had introduced some boys to you by that point?

05-00:16:16 Bartholomew: Oh, yeah, they tried. [laughter] Didn't work.

05-00:16:22 Meeker: How long was it after you met Bruce that you introduced them or let your parents know about him?

05-00:16:29 Bartholomew: I told them immediately. The first phone call I said, “I have a boyfriend.” So the second phone call, a week later, “I’m engaged.” [laughter] I mean, meanwhile, we had been observing each other for a year but we just didn’t talk that much.

05-00:16:47 Meeker: So you were in this orchestra for a year before you started dating?

05-00:16:49 Bartholomew: Right. And I wasn’t about to chase him. No way. Not in those days. Nowadays different, right? [laughter] Well, I’m from the old school. And it’s better that way. I can always blame him. He was the one who asked me to marry him. I didn’t ask him.

05-00:17:08 Meeker: [laughter] It’s always his fault, right?

05-00:17:09 Bartholomew: Right.

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05-00:17:10 Meeker: So how did your parents respond then?

05-00:17:13 Bartholomew: My father was in shock because, “My daughter’s marrying a foreigner.” But that’s ridiculous because I already have foreign blood in me. We’re from a Eurasian family. So next day he was very happy. He went out and told his friends that he had one, too. They bragged about the foreign sons-in-law, daughters-in-law, so now he had one. [laughter]

05-00:17:35 Meeker: And he was an educated man, too, right?

05-00:17:38 Bartholomew: So it didn’t matter. And he was happy that Bruce had all these degrees and that he was in science, botany.

05-00:17:47 Meeker: So I wonder if you can just tell me a little bit about some of how his expertise in biological sciences, in botany, influenced your study of art.

05-00:18:01 Bartholomew: Well, especially in my show The Hundred Flowers [1985], because I wanted to make sure that every flower had the correct botanical name on it. I didn’t really need his help in identification, but I needed his help in Latin names because I couldn’t do them. So he made sure everything was perfect.

05-00:18:21 Meeker: And I also noticed in the Yixing ware catalogue he assisted in some of the writing of descriptions?

05-00:18:29 Bartholomew: Yes. Because like the one of the grape, He found that that type of grape was actually growing in the Yixing area. So it’s not from somebody’s imagination. So that was a big help. And also the introduction of pumpkin and peanuts, all these. I didn’t know when those came to China from the New World, yeah.

05-00:18:49 Meeker: So, for instance, there’s one, I guess it’s a water vessel using a peanut, right? Is that right? If I remember correctly. And then the pumpkin, which is a teapot—

05-00:19:05 Bartholomew: Right.

05-00:19:05 Meeker: These were not indigenous?

05-00:19:11 Bartholomew: No, I guess these are just little things. Yeah, they’re not—

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05-00:19:13 Meeker: Oh, they’re not water vessels. These are peanuts we’re looking at. But so neither of these were indigenous to Asia and so then that assists in the dating when these things could have been produced.

05-00:19:29 Bartholomew: Yeah. For example, the peanut came in the seventeenth century, early seventeenth century. So this man would have seen it. But, of course, now that I looked at it, I realized many of these were made in the early twentieth century. That’s because after this show, the next year Hong Kong had an exhibition. And when that show opened they invited the top artists from Yixing. So Mr. Gu Jingzhou came down and said, “Oh, so and so made this. So and so made that.” And we were all horrified.

05-00:20:00 Meeker: Oh, because the dating wasn’t right.

05-00:20:02 Bartholomew: The dating was like eighteenth century, seventeenth century. Yeah, seventeenth century. Most of them were modern. Because in the early twentieth century there were many people collecting Yixing ware in Shanghai. And there’s always been collectors. But in those days, these people were crazy. They were industrialists. They had plenty of money. And, of course, if you wanted Yixing ware, people would make it for you and say that, “Oh, these are eighteenth century.” So many of these interesting fruit and nuts, they were all made in the early twentieth century.

05-00:20:35 Meeker: Really?

05-00:20:35 Bartholomew: Yes. So I have to correct my dating.

05-00:20:41 Meeker: [laughter] Okay. So I want to talk about that exhibit. Can maybe talk about that in just a second. But just one final point about this. It’s interesting how you have this combination of art history knowledge and scientific knowledge that actually then kind of creates a social history of a place that talks about migration along with sort of representation of new ideas. How are you thinking about the combination of these two areas of knowledge?

05-00:21:23 Bartholomew: I’ll give you an example. It’s like dating. A friend had an eighteenth century hand scroll of the hundred flowers. Chinese artists are pretty good at putting one hundred flowers together, and it was by a court artist and made for the Qianlong emperor. So when I saw this I said, “Oh, please let me study it.” So I was identifying one flower after another. There was a whole bunch of little flowers I couldn’t identify, so I asked Bruce. I said, “What are these? These are not the common ones.” So he checked it out. “Wait a minute. This plant wasn’t introduced to China until the nineteenth century. Did you say it’s an

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eighteenth century painting?” So you can date a painting by the content. So obviously it was a later copy because it had a nineteenth century flower in it.

05-00:22:12 Meeker: Interesting. This is significant not merely for establishing genealogy in art history but I guess also provenance and value, as well, if somebody is interested in trading these items.

05-00:22:30 Bartholomew: But I think if you add some botanical knowledge to the field, it’s quite interesting. Because art history cannot stand alone. You got to add some more things to it. So it was kind of fun.

05-00:22:42 Meeker: That’s a good point. Well, let me ask you a little bit more about this exhibit. It was I guess staged in 1978. Does that sound about right?

05-00:22:53 Bartholomew: Yes.

05-00:22:53 Meeker: And it was with the China Institute of America. It wasn’t with the Asian Art Museum.

05-00:23:03 Bartholomew: No, ’77. October. The same year my son was born.

05-00:23:07 Meeker: Okay. So October of ’77.

05-00:23:10 Bartholomew: Yes. I think I was the first curator in the museum who did a show outside of the museum. And what happened was I did not talk to the China Institute. There was a friend of mine who was also crazy about Yixing ware. He approached China Institute for me.

05-00:23:31 Meeker: Who was this?

05-00:23:31 Bartholomew: Bruce Harmon. H-A-R-M-O-N. And he was able to find out very quickly who were the collectors in New York and I was able later on to borrow from these people, including I.M. Pei. So it was all due to Bruce Harmon. When he approached China Institute, some people were very interested because they knew about Yixing ware. His name was Wango Weng, one of the board members. And during the meeting, one scholar, a well-known scholar, says, “Come on. We don’t want a whole case of little brown pots, one after another.” Because that’s how they thought about Yixing ware because they didn’t know anything about it. And Wango Weng said, “Wait a minute. There are painters and famous scholars associated with the creation of these

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teapots,” and one collector quickly said, “Oh, in that case, let’s have the show.” So at first I was rather insulted because why can’t Yixing ware stood by themselves? This was a show where they combined painting with Yixing ware. But then later on I realized that Wango was right: all these scholars were associated with Yixing ware. The collector’s name was John Crawford. It was his collection mainly. So he was on the board of the China Institute and he approved the show. So that’s how it is. The first Yixing ware was a combination of Yixing ware and paintings and calligraphy.

05-00:25:09 Meeker: Can you tell me a little bit about the China Institute?

05-00:25:12 Bartholomew: They don’t have a permanent collection. It was a tiny little gallery in the brownstone house and they do little shows but very good shows on different aspects of Chinese art. It still exists.

05-00:25:30 Meeker: And it’s out of New York, correct?

05-00:25:31 Bartholomew: Mm-hmm. So when I asked my director, giving me permission to do this, and he said, “Why can’t we do it here?” Well, he knew of my interest. He never asked me, so it was better that I go someplace else. But the museum ended up taking the show. So it traveled. Went to China Institute and then Nelson Gallery, Kansas City, and also then finally the Asian Art Museum. The Nelson Gallery director was Laurence Sickman and this was a big name in the Chinese art history field and he supported me a lot. He gave me a lot of information, which was very kind because I was a nobody. Nobody knew me in those days. I was just a new curator. So it was good.

05-00:26:33 Meeker: Basically, so the China Institute is more of a cultural organization?

05-00:26:37 Bartholomew: Yeah.

05-00:26:37 Meeker: Kind of similar to the Japan Society I guess.

05-00:26:37 Bartholomew: Mm-hmm.

05-00:26:40 Meeker: Okay. And one of the things that I read in the introduction to it, you said that there was a study trip preceding the staging of this exhibit. What did a study trip entail for you?

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05-00:27:08 Bartholomew: It was touring around to select the objects. I went to Seattle, Kansas City, New York, and then visited private collectors in New York. So that was very good. Get to know them and they trusted me with their treasures. Some of those people were very difficult.

05-00:27:28 Meeker: Yeah. How so?

05-00:27:30 Bartholomew: Well, first of all, they said like, “Who are you?” to begin with. So you have to prove to them that you know what you’re talking about, that you have the knowledge to do research on their pieces.

05-00:27:45 Meeker: Well, the art world is sometimes both extremely egocentric in the sense—

05-00:27:54 Bartholomew: And snobbish.

05-00:27:55 Meeker: Well, egocentric in the sense that people like to have their names out there.

05-00:27:59 Bartholomew: Yes.

05-00:28:00 Meeker: The Donald Fisher collection of modern art is going to be at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. But sometimes people want to remain anonymous. They don’t want people to know what they hold in their collection for a variety of reasons. How did you as a young curator sort of manage that when you were approaching private collectors and trying to entice their treasures out of them for display?

05-00:28:33 Bartholomew: Well, I said that this ware was unknown. And, of course, once you have an exhibition your pieces will be known and people will start knowing about this ware. Actually, I didn’t have to say that. They knew more about this than I do—than I did. So they were quite willing because they all realized this would be the first exhibition of its type. And I don’t think anybody remained anonymous except ourselves.

05-00:29:03 Meeker: Yeah, the Asian Art Museum.

05-00:29:04 Bartholomew: Everybody wanted the name to be out there. And I.M. Pei was extremely nice. And I went to see him and it turned out that he was my neighbor in China when I was a baby. So he knew my family. That helped.

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05-00:29:19 Meeker: And he was already quite well-known as an architect? Yeah.

05-00:29:21 Bartholomew: Yeah. His wife was very nice, too. Because I borrowed things from him twice. Twice? Yeah. I must have. Or else I have to write about it and asked permission to publish.

05-00:29:38 Meeker: So the study trip did not entail travel to China at this point?

05-00:29:43 Bartholomew: No. Because I already traveled to Hong Kong before and I knew all I wanted from the Hong Kong collectors. And they actually shipped the objects over.

05-00:29:56 Meeker: Are these kinds of trips typical for curators to do?

05-00:30:02 Bartholomew: Yes. Before you do an exhibition, you always have to travel first. Otherwise how would you know who to contact? Because like all these Yixing pieces, they had not been published by the museums, so I couldn’t know from existing literature. Until you go there and they open up and show you what they have.

05-00:30:23 Meeker: How did you identify who had the good private collections? Is it mostly word of mouth at this point?

05-00:30:29 Bartholomew: Bruce Hammond did a lot of sniffing in New York for me because he knew some big dealers and from those people he was told who were the collectors. Yeah.

05-00:30:46 Meeker: So when this exhibit is staged in New York in 1977, what was the reception for it?

05-00:30:55 Bartholomew: It was very good. They were very happy. In fact, I still have those visitors books the China Institute gave me of all the people who came in and I saw the nice comments. Yeah.

05-00:31:09 Meeker: Did it seem like it was mostly other people who already had an interest in these items or—

05-00:31:19 Bartholomew: It’s new to them.

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05-00:31:20 Meeker: New to them?

05-00:31:21 Bartholomew: Yeah. To Chinese they knew what Yixing teapots were but for the American public, no. Yeah.

05-00:31:27 Meeker: One of the things that comes up clear in here is that quality of craftsmanship, artistry, is central. It’s really, it seems, like the things that you’re most interested in displaying. How did you determine what the quality pieces were? What sort of criteria would you use?

05-00:31:54 Bartholomew: Whatever I have in my museum. Things that I’m familiar with. And we were very lucky because the Brundage teapots were beautiful. This one. If you’re used to seeing good things then you know. You educate your eyes with good things to begin with, then you know what quality is. So I used the Asian Art Museum pieces to judge the others. And for Yixing ware you can tell very simply. It shows right away.

05-00:32:24 Meeker: You can tell, right?

05-00:32:25 Bartholomew: I can.

05-00:32:26 Meeker: But can you explain a little bit of that? Like things that you might think about when you are looking—

05-00:32:32 Bartholomew: No. I look at this one. I said, “Wow.”

05-00:32:34 Meeker: So what plate are we looking at here?

05-00:32:36 Bartholomew: So we’re looking at seventy-two, a narcissus flowerpot [in the catalog for I- Hsing Ware (1977)]. This belongs to the Asian Art Museum. Quality. Yes, these were made by the section mold method but they have to be joined together neatly. And, also, I always touch the teapots. The lid has to be really well fitted. Of course, the way to test it is to pour water but I didn’t do that. [laughter] I don’t want to get them wet. But every one of them, they’re just perfect little things.

05-00:33:09 Meeker: So it’s craftsmanship, one. So how well the pieces fit together.

05-00:33:13 Bartholomew: Right. And the name.

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05-00:33:14 Meeker: And the name?

05-00:33:15 Bartholomew: Yeah. I already knew the names. So these are all famous makers. Of course, then you run the trouble of being fakes, because if you’re famous, people would copy you.

05-00:33:27 Meeker: Well, that was an interesting thing that you said, it’s similar in this catalogue, which is if it’s a famous name it’s more likely to be fake. And if it’s a less famous name, it’s less likely to be fake.

05-00:33:40 Bartholomew: Yeah. So for example, this one, a Hong Kong collector insisted that I put this one in. And he says, “Oh, it’s dated. It’s Yongzheng second year. That was like early eighteenth century. Now it turned out to be early twentieth century. Now I know but in those days I didn’t.

05-00:34:02 Meeker: So it was basically a forgery, right?

05-00:34:04 Bartholomew: Yeah. But mainly I just chose them for quality. For example, this one. Newark Museum. Broken. Why did I choose it? I chose it because, first of all, it’s a very important teapot. Secondly, the owner liked it so much that he had it mended in gold.

05-00:34:21 Meeker: Oh, in gold.

05-00:34:23 Bartholomew: Yes. Gold lacquer.

05-00:34:25 Meeker: Which one is this?

05-00:34:25 Bartholomew: This is the small Hui Menchen teapot from the Newark Museum.

05-00:34:30 Meeker: And it’s plate number?

05-00:34:31 Bartholomew: Plate number five. And it’s two inches high. But absolutely great workmanship. So that’s why I chose it.

05-00:34:40 Meeker: How do you deal with forgeries, because you actually did make, I think, an interesting point in there about forgeries. In Western art, as soon as, for

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instance, a painting is seen to be a forgery, it almost gets thrown on the fire. But that wasn’t exactly the point that you were making about this.

05-00:35:01 Bartholomew: For Yixing ware, no. If it is high quality, that’s fine. So even now, after we published that all these later pieces were fakes, they still sell for like close to a million dollars. Yeah. It doesn’t matter. The quality is there. And there’s a history of faking around that time and they happened to be the best pieces of Yixing ware. So they’re accepted.

05-00:35:28 Meeker: That’s so interesting. So here you have this whole period of time that I guess according to your evaluation was producing maybe some of the best quality of Yixing ware that’s been produced. But doing so under sort of false pretenses.

05-00:35:45 Bartholomew: Yes. But because they’re so beautiful, people still like them.

05-00:35:50 Meeker: Well, and the irony then is we don’t actually know who truly produced these pieces.

05-00:35:54 Bartholomew: We know some of them. Yeah. But it’s by mainly doing research. Now we know some of them.

05-00:36:02 Meeker: How does one find that out?

05-00:36:06 Bartholomew: Okay. So there is a beautiful teapot, the Three Friends of Winter. Where is it? I can’t even find these things. Anyway, it’s by the potter Chen Mingyuan, the most controversial one. And it shows a bundle of twigs, three types of wood, pine, bamboo, and plum.

05-00:36:56 Meeker: This is plate number ten.

05-00:36:57 Bartholomew: Yeah, plate number ten. Three Friends Teapot. Now this is in the Chinese University Art Museum, the art gallery. And it has Chen Mingyuan’s name on it and he was famous for making all these things. Then, of course, then when the second exhibition took place in Hong Kong potter from Yixing started to talk and I went to interview those potter. One said, “Oh, yeah, my uncle made it.” I said, “How can we prove this?” They said, “My uncle made it.” That’s all. They would keep on saying the same—so later on, in Singapore I found a famous collection where there was indeed a little cup made in a similar style. And I have seen that cup before with Chen Mingyuan’s name on it but this time it has this potter’s uncle’s name right on there. So I said, “Wow, okay. So

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at least we can prove that this person made this style.” So it’s just slowly doing this.

05-00:37:55 Meeker: So this piece was originally identified as dated to 1702?

05-00:37:59 Bartholomew: Right. Seventeen-oh-two by Chen Mingyuan.

05-00:38:01 Meeker: But as it turns out, it was actually in all likelihood produced by—

05-00:38:05 Bartholomew: By this man by the name of Jiang Yanting.

05-00:38:09 Meeker: Jiang. And so would you consider the potter who actually made this—

05-00:38:16 Bartholomew: A great potter? Yes, here you can see.

05-00:38:20 Meeker: And now do people collect his work even though he produced, in essence, forgeries?

05-00:38:27 Bartholomew: His works are very interesting. They are really commonplace ones because he had to live. So he stamped his real name on these run-of-the-mill pieces that he made for factories. But once in a while you see his name attached to a good piece. So far I have only seen one.

05-00:38:44 Meeker: What was that?

05-00:38:45 Bartholomew: That was the piece in Singapore. And the man in Singapore died and his pieces went on auction and somebody in Taiwan bought them. They were very proud of it. Yeah. So it’s a good piece quality wise.

05-00:38:59 Meeker: But it’s very interesting. It really does show that it’s not so much the name as it is the craftsmanship that people are interested in.

05-00:39:10 Bartholomew: But unfortunately, in Chinese history we do dating by things we excavated. We haven’t excavated any pieces by Chen Mingyuen yet so there’s no piece that—how would you say it? In Chinese we would say this is the perfect dated piece. We don’t have one yet.

05-00:39:35 Meeker: Oh, of the original artist.

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05-00:39:38 Bartholomew: Okay. It’s like this piece, I bought it for the museum because, first of all, it’s beautiful. Secondly, it has the name of the potter, which is Shi Dabin, who was very famous and it was made for somebody known to have been associated with him. So in those days, that’s all the proof you need. This particular scholar advocated the making of little teapots and there are books talking about the scholar, how he influenced this man in making little teapots. So I said, “Wow.” And the date of the teapot corresponded to the life date of this scholar. So we bought this. And then later on pieces began to be excavated from China bearing the potter’s name and those were all very simple. He could not have made this. This was too sophisticated. So this was a fake.

05-00:40:40 Meeker: Yeah. Because these are quite early on?

05-00:40:42 Bartholomew: Yes.

05-00:40:44 Meeker: And so how would you date those now? How would you try to create an estimate?

05-00:40:50 Bartholomew: Twentieth century. But we couldn’t find who had done this because I asked all those Yixing potters. They did not know. Usually they can tell by the handle or the spout who made such and such a teapot.

05-00:41:04 Meeker: So the item we’re talking about is plate number two. And it’s the one that’s on the cover of the catalogue.

05-00:41:11 Bartholomew: Yeah.

Meeker: One of the things that you also mentioned in this catalogue that I found to be pretty interesting was that this pottery was not displayed typically by museums. It was collected but it wasn’t collected in the same way that, say, Ming porcelain would have been, largely because Ming porcelain was collected by the Imperial Court whereas the Imperial Court was not particularly interested in collecting these pieces. Rather this was what the literati were interested in collecting.

Bartholomew: They did not commission any from Yixing but there were Yixing teapots in the palace. Several years later there was an exhibition. Yeah. So the emperors did collect some but they embellished the teapots with gold and lacquer. They did not appreciate just the clay itself. Yeah.

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05-00:42:13 Meeker: So this actually describes, for lack of a better word, a class element and collection and the difference between the royalty and the scholarly class.

05-00:42:28 Bartholomew: Right. But the scholarly class, they would collect Yixing teapots because they had the time, they had the leisure to drink and they wanted the best pieces. Of course they have to have a Yixing teapot, and also because of its association with scholars. It’s very important.

05-00:42:44 Meeker: Why would it be considered associated so much with scholars?

05-00:42:48 Bartholomew: Okay. Like that porcelain piece made in Jingdezhen, it’s made by at least twenty pair of hands. Somebody dug the clay, somebody make the teapot, somebody decorated it. It’s not the same person. But the Yixing teapot is made by one person usually, from beginning to end. So many of these potters, they could not write. They were craftsmen. So it was scholars who helped them sign and that’s why some of these early pots have beautiful calligraphy on it. Because the scholar would sign it for the potter and then somebody else would do the carving so you have a beautiful name on it. And history talked about association, like scholar so-and-so is associated with potter so-and-so. And then later on in the nineteenth century there was one famous official, scholar official, Chen Mansheng, who was stationed not far from Yixing and in his spare time he was the one who created the eighteen styles of teapot. And as you see, these teapots are all very plain so that you can carve on them. And from these you know that this was made by a famous artist, Gai Qi. So these are all famous names. You can trace them. And scholars like this type of teapot. Chen Mansheng was also a famous seal carver. So in those days, I would say like early twentieth century, it cost a hundred pieces of silver to buy one of these pots. Now it’s like probably fifty or sixty thousand to buy one, if you are lucky.

05-00:44:25 Meeker: So it’s almost as if teapots became a canvas for—

05-00:44:30 Bartholomew: Yeah, exactly. For calligraphy and painting because the Kansas City teapot is the one I’m crazy about. This is after a famous painting.

05-00:44:50 Meeker: And so this is plate number twenty-two. The teapot in the shape of a rice measure.

05-00:44:56 Bartholomew: Because in China, calligraphy, painting, and seal carving, the three arts are very important. So in one teapot you get all three of them. Because the collector who collected this, his calligraphy appeared on the other side. And on the bottom of the piece, which is not shown here, is a seal collected by the

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collector. No, this is the seal of the potter, which is in the lid. So underneath this was actually a seal that belonged to the collector of this teapot. So there’s so much history. And if you are a Yixing collector you have to have at least one teapot by this man, Chen Mansheng.

05-00:45:43 Meeker: Why is that? Because of the calligraphy?

05-00:45:44 Bartholomew: Yeah. And also because of his name. Names are very important. Also, you don’t have books talking about the potters of Jingdezhen, but there are so many books about Yixing potters. Even from the Ming dynasty they started writing about this ware. So once I started my research it was very easy to just put together a list of names. It is something collected by the Chinese. That’s why not too many people outside of China knew about it until now, and also not too many American collectors of Yixing ware.

05-00:46:29 Meeker: And, of course, they’re mass produced now, as well.

05-00:46:32 Bartholomew: Yeah. Well, they were mass produced even a long time ago. But these are by artist potters. It’s very different from mass production. Yeah.

05-00:46:42 Meeker: So this exhibit you said first was staged in New York and then it traveled to Kansas City. Is that right?

05-00:46:48 Bartholomew: Yes.

05-00:46:49 Meeker: And then it came to the Asian Art Museum.

05-00:46:51 Bartholomew: San Francisco.

05-00:46:53 Meeker: Was it more or less intact when it came to the Asian Art Museum?

05-00:46:58 Bartholomew: Yeah.

05-00:46:59 Meeker: How was it received there?

05-00:47:01 Bartholomew: It was well received. And I’m happy to say it influenced a lot of American potters. One of them is Richard Notkin—I have to bring up a book to show you. He’s quite famous. He does cooling towers. All his teapots have political meaning and his protests against some of the things happening.

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05-00:47:26 Meeker: So he did nuclear power plant cooling towers?

05-00:47:28 Bartholomew: Yeah. But in the Yixing tradition, using just plain clay. And he came down, he talked to me and I talked to him and it was fun. We became friends and later on he became very famous. And there were other people, too, influenced by Yixing ware.

05-00:47:44 Meeker: So he was interested probably in learning the method of making this pottery?

05-00:47:48 Bartholomew: Yeah. Yeah. And one time a potter from Taiwan got a huge group of American potters together and included me as an interpreter. We went to Yixing and we spent several glorious days just making things together.

05-00:48:06 Meeker: Oh, so you learned how to make pottery, as well?

05-00:48:08 Bartholomew: Yeah. I can show you what I made.

05-00:48:10 Meeker: I want to see it. Okay. Did the local media, particularly newspaper, cover these exhibits?

05-00:48:24 Bartholomew: Oh, yes. It had very good review.

05-00:48:27 Meeker: Yeah. Were you interested in the way in which newspapers would review your exhibits?

05-00:48:33 Bartholomew: I’m still very shy about things like this. Oh, people gave me a whole stack of newspaper when it came out. It was an extremely good review. I’m glad that people liked the show but I don’t want them to talk too much about me. I just want them to know all about the art.

05-00:48:56 Meeker: Okay. You had mentioned these series of exhibits and then it went to China, correct, this same exhibit, or they—

05-00:49:06 Bartholomew: No, it just went to three places. But the next year Hong Kong decided to have their own exhibition. But they asked me to write an article.

05-00:49:15 Meeker: So what institution of Hong Kong?

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05-00:49:18 Bartholomew: Hong Kong Museum of Art.

05-00:49:20 Meeker: And can you describe that exhibition and how it differed from your exhibition that traveled?

05-00:49:25 Bartholomew: Some of the teapots were there. The same collectors. It’s not much different. Similar in style. And that’s when they invited the Yixing potters to come down and then we had the shock of our lives when they told us that, “This is a fake, that is a fake.” But that’s good. That’s how we learned things. Whenever an exhibition came up, then the collectors who had these things decided to put them in an auction and Sotheby held the first auction using the same color scheme, this kind of color for the catalogue.

05-00:50:11 Meeker: Oh, really?

05-00:50:11 Bartholomew: Oh, people copy each other all the time. And they got huge prices. They were very happy.

05-00:50:17 Meeker: Well, it’s interesting. I know that you’re not too much involved in the art market.

05-00:50:23 Bartholomew: No.

05-00:50:24 Meeker: But I suspect that given the recognition that there’s a vast amount of forgery in these items, even good forgeries, typically that would make art dealers in auction houses like Sotheby’s or Christie’s kind of a little hands off and not want to get into it because they might have liability in that. Did you ever have any conversations with these people? How do you translate sort of western art sensibility about an original piece that has—the way that Walter Benjamin talked about aura, right, in a piece. Whereas these pieces maybe don’t have the aura of the original but they have perhaps better quality craftsmanship than the original potter could have been able to come up with.

05-00:51:23 Bartholomew: When they put up the auction they really did not know about these fakes. But, yes, they have heard about it. That some of these may be problems because they were all made for the very famous gangster of Shanghai, who was a collector of Yixing ware. And this was collected by his in-laws. And, actually, they asked me to help write and I said, “I don’t think so.” I refused to.

05-00:51:54 Meeker: Because of the connection to the gangster?

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05-00:51:57 Bartholomew: No, no, no, no. Because I feel that some of these things may not be right. They don’t want to hear things like that.

05-00:52:04 Meeker: Sotheby’s didn’t?

05-00:52:05 Bartholomew: Yeah, no. I wasn’t the only one who told them. There were other people telling them. But they didn’t care. They just published them with the names. Yeah. Actually, I actually supplied some information. There were a few good ones among them so I gave them some information on the various potters.

05-00:52:26 Meeker: How did the recognition, particularly after this visit to Hong Kong—was it Shanghai that you said the exhibition was in?

05-00:52:37 Bartholomew: No, Hong Kong.

05-00:52:38 Meeker: In Hong Kong, that’s right. How did this impact the purchase of these kinds of pieces by the museum? Did the powers that be become more reluctant after the recognition that there were a lot of forgeries floating about or was it still a question of finding the best quality pieces?

05-00:53:01 Bartholomew: My museum did not go out to buy these things because that’s not the interest of the museum. But it was my interest. So later on I was able to get some really nice contemporary ones made by women potters. Not because they were women potters but those two women were the most creative. They’re on display. Like a boat, a beautiful one shaped like a lotus root with lotus leaves. I think those are on display maybe. But I was able to buy those for the museum. There are not too many of these pieces that came out from the market. And if they come out, private collectors will snatch them up first. But one very important thing that came out of the Hong Kong exhibition was that the two major collectors, Mr. K.S. Lo, head of Vitasoy, the drink that you see sometimes, and Mr. J.S. Lee. These collectors formed a company to sell Yixing ware. They went up to talk to Gu Jingzhou, who was the number one potter, and showed them the catalogue and said, “Why can’t you people make teapots like this instead of all these run of the mill tea sets? And the man was very insulted and said, “Of course we can make this. Who would buy them?” So Mr. K.S. Lo says, “If you make it, I’ll buy it.” So he said, “However, you have to listen to my conditions. They have to be the best quality. I want you to sign and seal them and date them. And I’m going to send somebody in Hong Kong to check the quality.” So I actually have the catalogue of these first pieces that Mr. Lo commissioned. And they formed a company called Double Fish Company. And these pots sold like hotcakes in Hong Kong. And then, of course, other people in Hong Kong jumped into the same business. People in

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Taiwan jumped in. Suddenly the poor Yixing potters were bombarded and bribed by all these companies coming up. They bribed them with cars and all kinds of money and all these TV sets and all these luxury items. And suddenly they became very rich. And these potters are very nice. They knew my name a long time ago from the catalogue because I was the one who wrote the major article in it. So they thanked me for making them rich. I still have many good friends in Yixing. And I did, I made them rich. [laughs]

05-00:55:31 Meeker: So there really was, as a result of this exhibit in the United States, but then especially with the exhibit in Hong Kong, an explosion in the market. I wonder, now, have those original pieces of this, of new explosion in the 1970s and I guess early eighties, probably, have they held their value?

05-00:55:57 Bartholomew: Oh, my God. I could kick myself because I did not have money and all I could afford was like $100. You have the master potter and his students made similar pots. So I bought two student ones. The master’s was $1,000. In those days I did not travel with $1,000. And if I had bought it, it would be like fifty, sixty thousand now. [laughter] But I didn’t like the pot.

Audio File 6

06-00:00:44 Meeker: So the book we’re looking at is Yixing Pottery. It’s the same pronunciation, different—

06-00:00:55 Bartholomew: That’s Pinyin.

06-00:00:55 Meeker: Pinyin as opposed to—

06-00:00:58 Bartholomew: To Wade Giles.

06-00:00:58 Meeker: Yeah, Wade Giles, that’s right. And the title of your article was “A Study on the Shapes and Decorations Of Yixing Teapots.” And this one’s lovely because it’s in color. Very nice.

06-00:01:23 Bartholomew: Same piece.

06-00:01:24 Meeker: And so these are corrected dates in here?

06-00:01:29 Bartholomew: No, because we didn’t know then. It was after the exhibition opened, invited the people to come down, then we knew. We had a symposium.

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06-00:01:42 Meeker: So I do recognize some of the same pieces in here, sure.

06-00:01:45 Bartholomew: This one. Yeah. You have a good visual memory.

06-00:01:50 Meeker: Oh, this is the second one, I think, in the other catalogue.

06-00:01:54 Bartholomew: But what Mr. K.S. Lo did was to have Yixing potters copy his teapots. This one was copied and this one was copied.

06-00:02:02 Meeker: I’ve seen copies of these before. We’re looking at number four, the teapot in a style of a monk’s cap, lotus crown, and this has become like a motif almost, right?

06-00:02:18 Bartholomew: Because what happens is the potters have the technique but not the creativity. So if you give them a new shape that they have never seen, they quickly copy it.

06-00:02:30 Meeker: I have a pomegranate. That’s cool. Oh, you can see the mouse almost now.

06-00:02:58 Bartholomew: The important thing was my article was translated into Chinese, so they knew my name. And I’m happy to say that since then there are so many publications in Yixing ware. The Yixing people started to do it. Which was good because they know much more than we do about the technique and also the history.

06-00:03:22 Meeker: That must require some humility, as well, learning that sometimes things that you’ve published are not accurate.

06-00:03:30 Bartholomew: Yeah. But it also gives you a chance when you publish again to correct your mistakes.

06-00:03:37 Meeker: Ah, so when you republish.

06-00:03:37 Bartholomew: Yeah. So this is Sotheby’s. That’s where they made lots of money.

06-00:03:44 Meeker: And this is the Yixing ware. Sotheby’s 1978. So this is just—

06-00:03:52 Bartholomew: Seventy-eight? And K.S. Lo bought most of it and set up his tea museum in Hong Kong. And these are the catalogues. This is the one. That’s the famous

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potter, Gu Jingzhou, and he was told to copy this teapot, which was $300 US and the wholesale was one thousand. I didn’t have that type of money. But this person is my friend and she made all these—

06-00:04:31 Meeker: What’s her name?

06-00:04:31 Bartholomew: Wang Yinxian. She is now one of the top artists. She was a student of Gu Jingzhou.

06-00:04:39 Meeker: And you purchased some of her early work?

06-00:04:42 Bartholomew: I didn’t purchase this but I purchased—either I purchased or I was given this one. No, I think Mr. K.S. Lo gave me one. And this is the top sculptor. He is still the top sculptor. This is one of the first sales catalogue. K.S. Lo and his company did me a lot of favors because they showed a picture of the potter and a little history. So that helped me a lot. I don’t know these people. So now I do. So these people are all top potters right now.

06-00:05:30 Meeker: So what we’re looking at is comparing the original 1978 Sotheby’s auction catalogue.

06-00:05:37 Bartholomew: These are sales catalogue. Let’s see. When did they come out? Nineteen eighty-five. See how fast they were?

06-00:05:51 Meeker: Yeah. And so these are, I guess, the authorized reproductions as opposed to forgeries?

06-00:05:58 Bartholomew: This is what they were making. But, of course, they have to copy many old shapes.

06-00:06:07 Meeker: There’s a key difference here between forgery and reproduction, correct? These are bona fide reproductions.

06-00:06:14 Bartholomew: Right. With the potter’s name.

06-00:06:19 Meeker: Yeah. Because I recognize this one.

06-00:06:22 Bartholomew: Oh, yeah. That’s very famous. That’s the very first teapot shape. But that’s Gu Jingzhou, the master.

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06-00:06:32 Meeker: This is the company: the Kam Fung Company of 1985. And this is the master potter? Again, his name is?

06-00:06:47 Bartholomew: Gu Jingzhou.

06-00:06:48 Meeker: Gu Jingzhou. Was ceramics and pottery one of the few collectible arts that women participated in?

06-00:07:09 Bartholomew: No. Usually you teach your sons but you don’t teach your daughters because they bring the secret to another family. But, don’t forget, when Communism came they got rid of all that. So in the early fifties they get all these potters inside of a commune and said, “You are going to teach all these little boys and girls.” So there’s a lot of men. But then later on I found out that the men were taken out to become administrators, so the women potters were never given the post of administration so they continued to be potters.

06-00:07:48 Meeker: And therefore they practiced their craft.

06-00:07:50 Bartholomew: Yeah.

06-00:07:53 Meeker: Interesting. So does that mean many of the best potters now are women?

06-00:07:59 Bartholomew: Yes.

06-00:08:01 Meeker: But the men are the bureaucrats?

06-00:08:02 Bartholomew: Yeah. This man, very famous for making square teapots. It’s very hard to make a square teapot.

06-00:08:13 Meeker: Can you describe the process of making a square teapot versus a more traditional shape?

06-00:08:17 Bartholomew: The more traditional shape is, you roll out a piece of clay; you form it into a cylinder; you put it on a turntable. You don’t use a potter’s wheel. It’s just a little turntable and you hit it until it becomes curved and then you add a bottom to it. You turn it around, beat it again. Before you know it, it’s a perfect circle. That’s how you make a traditional Yixing teapot. But to make a square teapot you draw it out and cut out pieces of paper and you just cut the little rectangles and put them together. But there’s all kinds of secrets to it

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because they may warp, they may become uneven in firing. So what they do is once they cut it out they shake it, somehow, to release the tension or something.

06-00:09:09 Meeker: So the clay was the panels there.

06-00:09:11 Bartholomew: Right. Not too many people will make square teapots. It’s more difficult. But they make the traditional, what they call “beating the cylinder,” like the one they beat on the little turntable. It’s fantastic. So that’s the first sales catalogue. That’s the latest sales catalogue. Same thing but become more and more complicated. More information on the potters. This always makes me very happy because I copy down all these names.

06-00:09:45 Meeker: So not only is there a renewed interest in the history of these pots, these teapots—

06-00:09:54 Bartholomew: There’s new research. Just a wonderful thing.

06-00:09:58 Meeker: Yeah. There’s a resurgence in it. Now there’s a greater variety of different styles, of use of color, of motifs. It’s almost like it’s kind of been reborn in some ways.

06-00:10:16 Bartholomew: So that’s how you make a round teapot or make a square teapot. So it’s like you beat it. It’s a cylinder. Ah, thank God, Richard Notkin. So this one is the bomb. He make cooling towers and all kinds of interesting things. Beautiful. Like little peanuts. It’s definitely Yixing influence. So that’s a cooling tower skull. These are all his. I didn’t know. I was trying to look for another book. That’s what he looks like.

06-00:11:18 Meeker: Wow, that’s amazing. Okay. We should probably move on a little bit. I want to ask you about some other exhibitions that you curate during the period of d’Argencé’s leadership. But I’m wondering if there are any in particular that you’d like to comment on. In 1980 there’s the religious art of Nepal, which I imagine would have been in your area because you were a curator for the art.

06-00:11:49 Bartholomew: That’s one of the first shows we did after Proposition 13 [1978].

06-00:11:52 Meeker: Well, can you describe Proposition 13 and how it impacted the work that you did at the museum?

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06-00:12:00 Bartholomew: Proposition 13, if I remember correctly, was to lower our property taxes, which severely cut down the income of the City of San Francisco. So that means they also cut down what they gave to the museum. And as a result we didn’t have money to pay for big exhibitions coming from other museums. And I was the one who suggested to Shangraw, I said, “We are sitting on a gold mine. Why can’t we just use our own things and do our own exhibitions?” So we did a lot. And we were able to get, I’d say, like a couple thousand dollars from just banks and we were able to put up a show with a little brochure.

06-00:12:51 Meeker: And so these are shows that didn’t require the expense of getting loans and travel and so forth.

06-00:13:00 Bartholomew: This is just using what we have and find themes. So many themes you can do. I’m surprised they don’t do more.

06-00:13:10 Meeker: So you remember feeling the economic effects of Prop 13 right away?

06-00:13:14 Bartholomew: Oh, extremely, the very next year.

06-00:13:18 Meeker: Did it result in fewer staff members at the museum, as well?

06-00:13:22 Bartholomew: No, because we just have the basic number of people there anyway. You can’t cut anymore.

06-00:13:30 Meeker: And so the Religious Art of Nepal [1980] is one of these first exhibits. Can you describe what that exhibit was?

06-00:13:37 Bartholomew: It was pulling out all the beautiful Nepalese pieces in our collection. We have a lot. But in our Tibetan gallery we only have that much space, so you only show at least two or three of them. That’s all. So this show had at least thirty or forty pieces. We did not have a brochure for the show so I can’t remember how many pieces were there. But it was quite a few. It was interesting. It was colorful because we showed off all our little shrines and they were studded with what we thought were rubies, turquoise, pearls, everything. The rubies turned out to be what they call—I forgot, foiled jewelry. They colored a piece of foil red, put it under the crystal. So if you look at it front view it is red. But if you look at it sideways, it isn’t.

06-00:14:35 Meeker: It’s just clear.

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06-00:14:36 Bartholomew: Yeah. So we learned a lot because when you do a show you do a lot of cleaning up, and while cleaning up we discovered that all these gems were not gems. It was always a learning process.

06-00:14:49 Meeker: Sure. So when you displayed this art, did you display it in the Himalayan gallery or was there an exhibition space?

06-00:14:58 Bartholomew: That was just one room. We always had it in that room. So every few months we change it and put a different one on. It was a good way to show people what we have in the collection. And in those days we can show things like religious art of Nepal or Chinese blue and white. Very specific. Now in the collection we have a room for this type of exhibition. But one of the men in charge will say that it has to be Pan-Asian every time. So it gets to be very boring after a while.

06-00:15:39 Meeker: Pan-Asian meaning it needs to be—

06-00:15:40 Bartholomew: Yeah. Like every country had to participate, not just China and Japan. For me, I don’t think that way. I thought whatever is interesting, I don’t care which country it is, I will show it. If you try to be fair and include every country, some country’s things are pretty junky when it comes to that specific theme. You don’t do things like this. But he’s the boss, I can’t fight, so I just gave up giving him ideas.

06-00:16:07 Meeker: So this was at the old museum or the new one?

06-00:16:11 Bartholomew: New.

06-00:16:12 Meeker: At the new museum. What gallery is this?

06-00:16:14 Bartholomew: It is the gallery after China, before Korea. I’m getting confused.

06-00:16:26 Meeker: So it’s on the second floor, I guess.

06-00:16:32 Bartholomew: Yes. Second floor.

06-00:16:37 Meeker: And so this is the temporary gallery for—

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06-00:16:40 Bartholomew: Specific shows. Pan-Asian shows.

06-00:16:43 Meeker: But it sounds like particularly collections, shows that are drawn on the permanent collection.

06-00:16:47 Bartholomew: Right.

06-00:16:50 Meeker: And then 1982 there was the Gandharan sculptures show?

06-00:16:54 Bartholomew: Right.

06-00:16:56 Meeker: And this was another internal exhibition.

06-00:17:02 Bartholomew: It was the same time as the de Young Museum was showing Alexander the Great. So we could link the two together.

06-00:17:08 Meeker: Did you do much of that?

06-00:17:10 Bartholomew: I did. It was my show.

06-00:17:11 Meeker: Yeah. I know that there was a history of tension between the de Young and the Asian Art Museum and this sounds like this exhibit, there were some parallels. I don’t know if you worked with them or not.

06-00:17:28 Bartholomew: No.

06-00:17:28 Meeker: Or did you just simply know that there would be people coming in there?

06-00:17:30 Bartholomew: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that’s why. Among the staff we are friends. It’s just the directors didn’t talk to each other.

06-00:17:45 Meeker: And how was the response to these smaller exhibits?

06-00:17:46 Bartholomew: Oh, it was very good. People love it. Especially later on when we—see, the beginning ones we did not have brochures. After that Pala one we had brochures. [Medieval Stone Sculpture from Eastern India, 1984]

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06-00:17:57 Meeker: So describe the Pala stone structures. This is 1984.

06-00:18:00 Bartholomew: It’s my favorite among the Indian sculptures because quality wise they’re beautiful. And they’re interesting because these are the pure Buddhist statues because this area was very Buddhist. It’s eastern Indian. It’s the last stronghold Buddhism had in India. After that, the Muslim came in, no more. So Buddhism disappeared from India after that. It went to Ceylon. So this show was great. It was all black statues but we used a lot of colors and we wrote good brochures.

06-00:18:50 Meeker: How did you use color in this particular exhibit?

06-00:18:50 Bartholomew: We use green felt. It was a nice green color. Not Kelly green but more olive green.

06-00:19:02 Meeker: And so The Hundred Flowers exhibit, the botanical motifs...?

06-00:19:05 Bartholomew: That was an absolutely beautiful show.

06-00:19:07 Meeker: And this also was one of these smaller exhibits, correct?

06-00:19:11 Bartholomew: Yeah. This one has a lasting influence because years later people even wrote to me and asked for the brochure. Luckily we printed a lot.

06-00:19:20 Meeker: Oh, good. I wonder just kind of if you can describe how people responded to these smaller shows that were drawn from the permanent collection. Whereas you didn’t have, it sounds like, the funds to bring in blockbuster shows, particularly at least during the first half of the 1980s. It looks like maybe the last blockbuster would have been the Five Thousand Years of Korean Art in 1979 for a while.

06-00:19:50 Bartholomew: Yeah.

06-00:19:51 Meeker: Yeah. So how does the public go from—

06-00:19:54 Bartholomew: They love it. They love it.

06-00:19:56 Meeker: You think so?

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06-00:19:57 Bartholomew: Yeah. First of all, it’s just one room. It’s very colorful, especially The Hundred Flowers. Because when I do things, I’m not a purist. I would add anything with flowers on it. Lacquers; ivory carvings. Just whatever with a nice flower, I would put that on, and I would give the name of the flower, the significance of the flower. So people feel that they learn something from it. We do very good labelings in these little shows. Up in the galleries you still see the little tombstones, short little labels. But for these shows we write a lot. And we always make it very colorful, porcelains and paintings and even textiles.

06-00:20:45 Meeker: Did you notice that attendance for the museum overall was stable or did it go down during this period of time where there weren’t as many big blockbusters and things?

06-00:20:55 Bartholomew: In those days it’s hard to tell because it depends on de Young Museum. People came in and got their money’s worth and came to our side also.

06-00:21:03 Meeker: So if the de Young had big exhibits then you would, as well.

06-00:21:06 Bartholomew: Right. We would have lots of people.

06-00:21:08 Meeker: And given the de Young was also a city museum they would have also been affected by the Prop 13.

06-00:21:16 Bartholomew: They had more money.

06-00:21:18 Meeker: They had more money. I’m curious to what extent did the directors concern you, the curators, with museum attendance? Would your job have been made more difficult if you curated one of these smaller exhibits that just no one attended?

06-00:21:43 Bartholomew: No. No. Those were the good days. Now you get the blame. But in those days you just, “Okay, you do it. Just do a good job.” And now, some of these shows you would have to think twice before you do it.

06-00:22:01 Meeker: Because you might be putting your career on the line in some ways?

06-00:22:02 Bartholomew: Yes, yes. Now, whatever you do, you put your career on the line and they blame you, which is ridiculous because one time I did a Tibetan exhibition and I know it will draw lots of people. So what they did was they based the

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next year’s budget on what they think the Tibetan show will bring in. So when the show came, the local Tibetans came to demonstrate. One Tibetan sitting demonstrating outside. That scared the PR department. They didn’t dare advertise the show. But over 100,000 people came, but it was less than what they imagined. So, of course, they lost money and they tried to blame me. I said, “Don’t you dare blame me. I’m not the one who jack up all these numbers. I just do my job and bring you the best exhibition I could.”

06-00:22:58 Meeker: What was the source of the criticism of the Tibetan show?

06-00:23:07 Bartholomew: It came from China but these pieces came from Lhasa. It was the Dalai Lama’s own clothing and the things that he used. But because it came from Lhasa the local Tibetans demonstrated against it. It was just because Tibet was taken over by China, and you can’t blame the Tibetans. But give me a break, one person demonstrating outside and you don’t dare advertise? There are cowards in my museum.

06-00:23:36 Meeker: But clearly, going into this exhibit Tibet is a touchy geopolitical issue.

06-00:23:44 Bartholomew: Yes.

06-00:23:45 Meeker: That it’s hard to win on either side. You go one direction you’re going to get criticized by the Tibetans. Other direction you’re going to get in trouble from China.

06-00:23:57 Bartholomew: Exactly. No, you just can’t win. Either side there will be trouble.

06-00:24:04 Meeker: So it’s interesting that the museum actually decided to go ahead with this exhibit to begin with.

06-00:24:09 Bartholomew: Because they know that this is a moneymaking scheme. They know this show would bring in money. That’s the only reason they agreed to it. So, of course, when they didn’t make money they tried to blame me. The administration did not blame me; just one of my colleagues blamed me and I just told him to go somewhere else, go to a warmer climate for all I care.

06-00:24:29 Meeker: All right. Well, tell me a little bit more about The Hundred Flowers because you’ve mentioned this before as one of your favorite—

06-00:24:35 Bartholomew: Yes, my favorite.

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06-00:24:35 Meeker: One of your favorite shows. And this obviously is about botanical motifs. I’m sure, perhaps, your husband—

06-00:24:48 Bartholomew: Oh, definitely, he helped with the Latin names.

06-00:24:54 Meeker: Okay. And then you have this ongoing interest in motifs in art, as well. So it starts to bring together some of your core interests.

06-00:25:12 Bartholomew: Did I show you some of my brochures?

06-00:25:15 Meeker: I don’t think so. Not for this one. Do you have one that you can show me?

06-00:25:19 Bartholomew: Yeah. I think so.

06-00:25:21 Meeker: So what we’re looking at now are the catalogues but they’re more like pamphlets from the 1980s period of the smaller exhibits that you did at the Asian Art Museum. And these are distinguished from the 1970s exhibit catalogues, which were much longer, more photographs, and thus also clearly those certainly cost more to produce than these.

06-00:25:56 Bartholomew: Definitely. But these were also packed with information.

06-00:26:00 Meeker: Yeah. Well, this is kind of interesting. It shows a real adaptability in the museum for changed economic times but it also shows that despite the budgets declining, you as a curator, and I assume your other colleagues, your curators, continue to produce exhibits.

06-00:26:26 Bartholomew: Right. Also, this is the first exhibition we used Chinese characters, bilingual.

06-00:26:31 Meeker: What we’re looking at, is The Hundred Flowers: Botanical Motifs in Chinese Art. It was staged at the Asian Art Museum March 24th to June 25th 1985. And it says “Compliments of Hibernia Bank.”

06-00:26:59 Bartholomew: They were very nice to us.

06-00:27:01 Meeker: Yeah. But it’s interesting. So there’s a move away from city funding, public funding towards private donations?

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06-00:27:11 Bartholomew: Yes.

06-00:29:12 Meeker: Did you play a role in any of that?

06-00:27:13 Bartholomew: No. Yeah, we have fundraisers.

06-00:27:16 Meeker: That was not your job?

06-00:27:16 Bartholomew: My job is just do the exhibition, nothing else.

06-00:27:19 Meeker: Okay. And this also has Chinese characters on the front and I assume that that says “hundred flowers.”

06-00:27:26 Bartholomew: Hundred Flowers Offering Auspiciousness.

06-00:27:29 Meeker: Offering auspiciousness. Okay. Can you describe this exhibit. What the significance of a hundred flowers is and what you hope to accomplish with the exhibit?

06-00:27:40 Bartholomew: I think it’s mainly to show people what a wealth of botanical motifs we have among Chinese art and also to show that they’re shown everywhere. This is the covering of a scroll.

06-00:27:55 Meeker: So we’re looking at plate number three. It’s a narcissus flower, Shuixian.

06-00:28:09 Bartholomew: Shuixian. That’s the Chinese name for it. So I gave the Chinese name, as well as the Latin name and the common name. And later on I was in the Palace Museum (Beijing) and I went into a palace that wasn’t open to the public but I was one of the VIPs invited to go. It was the Qianlong emperor’s retirement palace that he had built for himself. These panels, little panels, were part of the decoration. So somebody must have taken one of these off and used it to mount a scroll, the outside of the scroll. I said, “Wow. So it came from the palace.” No wonder it was so beautiful.

06-00:28:48 Meeker: Wow, that’s amazing. What was your interest in the botanical motifs? What did they signify for you?

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06-00:28:57 Bartholomew: I want to know the meaning, always the meaning of it, and the name of the flower. I want to be able to identify it. And it’s very clear. The Chinese artists have ways of portraying flowers. So for American curators, they can’t tell the difference between the rose or hibiscus and the peony. But for me it’s very easy because I’ve been painting as a child so I know there are specific ways to show flowers. So I don’t make mistakes when I identify flowers and I help other museum curators. People from Metropolitan, Boston, they all write to me and I help them.

06-00:29:36 Meeker: And so it really must have been the influence of your husband that you had the Latin names of all these flowers.

06-00:29:40 Bartholomew: Yes, that’s what he did.

06-00:29:46 Meeker: So can you walk me through a couple of items in here that you found to be particularly interesting or important?

06-00:29:55 Bartholomew: So it starts historically as well as according to the season. The historical, I just have like two early ones. This is a 2,000 year old incense burner and down here is the calyx of a persimmon. It’s definitely persimmon, can’t be anything else. And then, of course, Tang Dynasty, you have the grape and squirrel motif. This is a Tang Dynasty mirror, the back of a mirror. So these are the two early ones. Then for the springtime we have narcissus. We have camellias. So we just go by the season. And then you come to rebuses. The minute you come to peony, that’s the flower of wealth and rank, you see how it is combined with the white magnolia and also crab apple blossoms, the little pink blossoms. So all three mean wealth and rank in the jade hall. That means may you have a wealthy establishment. So this is a theme. The commoners like it. In Chinese restaurants you see this motif all the time and also in the palace. Even the emperor liked this motif.

06-00:31:01 Meeker: So this is plate number eleven.

06-00:31:04 Bartholomew: Yeah. So this is the beginning of my interest, which later on—

06-00:31:07 Meeker: In the rebuses.

06-00:31:08 Bartholomew: Which later on led to this catalogue, this exhibition. And now some of these are pretty rare. Like yangmei, this is something people like to eat. It’s a fruit in China. You don’t find it in America. And that is day lily pomegranate, of course, everybody knows this. It’s a Greek motif for fertility, same as in

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China. Buddha hand citron, so this piece is always beloved by everybody. It’s in the jade room. But this, this was found in the netsuke section. I said, “Wait a minute. This is Chinese. Let’s take it back.”

06-00:31:47 Meeker: It was found in the what section?

06-00:31:48 Bartholomew: Netsuke. Netsuke are the little Japanese toggles that people wear on their belt, used as a counterbalance to whatever you’re holding underneath. You just stick that over your belt and let it hang there. And they thought that this is a small carving, so they put it in the Japanese section. I claim it back. I said, “That’s Chinese.”

06-00:32:08 Meeker: And so this is number thirty-six and it has peanuts on it.

06-00:32:12 Bartholomew: Yeah. And Chinese honey dates. So they used the orange color of the rock to copy the date and the peanuts from its skin. So that means ‘quick son.’ A man who does not have a son would carry this on his body.

06-00:32:29 Meeker: So that’s another rebus, right?

06-00:32:29 Bartholomew: Right. So you can see my interest is already going to that direction.

06-00:32:35 Meeker: The symbolism is so deep and profound and how it’s integrated into everyday life so much is very interesting.

06-00:32:45 Bartholomew: Oh, it’s definitely integrated into everyday life and in the speech that we use. And this one is 1776, year of the American Revolution. The Chinese emperor was drinking from this beautiful cup, chrysanthemum cup with an imperial poem. Chrysanthemum symbolizes with longevity and it’s dated 1776. So, very beautiful. There’s a pair of them.

06-00:33:08 Meeker: Is there auspiciousness about that date in China or not?

06-00:33:10 Bartholomew: No. The emperor wrote a lot of poetry and that one happened to be dated 1776. He always dated his objects. When you inscribe a poem, you always put down the date when it was written. Now, something like this, you don’t even know what it is, just a white mass because it’s jade. But it’s begonia and has a nice story associated with this, so I told the story.

06-00:33:35 Meeker: And that’s plate forty-three.

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06-00:33:39 Bartholomew: And, of course this is the Three Friends of Winter, which is the pine, the bamboo, and the plum tree. Because in wintertime these two are the evergreen and the plum is the first to bloom. And this one here is nandina, wax plum, and podocarpus. But this is a pun on the Three Friends.

06-00:34:01 Meeker: Okay, how so? We’re looking at plates numbered eighty-one and—

06-00:34:10 Bartholomew: And forty-seven. Because podocarpus is ‘lohan pine,’ so it represents the pine. And wax plum is, of course, plum. And then nandina is called ‘heavenly bamboo.’ So it stands for the bamboo. So that’s the Chinese way of punning.

06-00:34:31 Meeker: I guess I don’t understand the pun.

06-00:34:35 Bartholomew: So it’s the pine, bamboo, and plum. So instead of the pine, bamboo, and plum, you use three different plants to represent pine, bamboo, and plum. So it’s a pun on ‘Three Friends’ but using different plants.

06-00:34:48 Meeker: And this, number forty-seven, is a motif that comes up regularly?

06-00:34:54 Bartholomew: This is a very traditional motif.

06-00:34:56 Meeker: Okay. And so they were sort of joking in some ways.

06-00:34:59 Bartholomew: Exactly.

06-00:35:00 Meeker: Almost making fun of the motif.

06-00:35:01 Bartholomew: Making fun. Yeah. And Shangraw did this. It’s beautiful. [Looking at an exhibition catalog] Oh, in the beginning, it was a fold-out—this is dreadful. Let’s make it into a book.

06-00:35:17 Meeker: So this [another fold-out catalog] was even cheaper?

06-00:35:19 Bartholomew: Yeah. See how beautiful it is.

06-00:35:23 Meeker: Yeah. So this is the master works of Ming? It’s the blue-and-white porcelains?

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06-00:35:27 Bartholomew: This is one of the early ones. What was the date of it?

06-00:35:32 Meeker: Yeah, January 1985.

06-00:35:33 Bartholomew: Eighty-five. And this is eighty-five. Okay. So yeah. This is right before. And imagine walking into a room, all blue-and-white. People love it. de Young Museum used to have a blue and white collection, Leventritt, and they gave it to us and we never did show it. Except some Leventritt pieces are in here.

06-00:35:56 Meeker: In all these exhibitions, these are all part of the permanent collection, correct?

06-00:36:02 Bartholomew: Yeah. Except this one is from the Leventritt collection. So the rest are Brundage. People love blue and white. In fact, I’m going to suggest that we do a blue and white show.

06-00:36:13 Meeker: Well, it’s interesting. Ming vases are some of the very few things that westerners know.

06-00:36:23 Bartholomew: Right.

06-00:36:25 Meeker: Right? Without much experience in Asian art. And so I think that something that is readily identifiable, they can understand that it’s of value.

06-00:36:35 Bartholomew: Also the idea of blue-and-white Delft, that copied Chinese art. So blue-and- white is something the Westerners know about. So they can relate to these easily. I think I will tell the director. Now, some of the curators get together to do these, all of us. Calligraphy and Asian embroidery. So everybody would get together. It’s hard. We noticed that because some curators did not follow deadlines. So it was very hard to make them obey.

06-00:37:18 Meeker: It sounds to me like during this period of time your work, despite the financial limitations, almost becomes more interesting for you.

06-00:37:30 Bartholomew: Yeah, it’s fun. And we really enjoyed these little shows because they were not exhausting.

06-00:37:38 Meeker: So the larger blockbuster kind of shows you would consider being exhausting to a certain degree?

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06-00:37:44 Bartholomew: Because when Shangraw was alive, he wouldn’t care what kind of blockbuster it was. Everybody must help. But now, forget it. Once we moved to the new museum, nobody would help you. It seems that, okay, you are the Chinese curator, you take care of all the Chinese visitors. So the Chinese curator has to go to the airport to get them, take them shopping, entertain them every day. Nobody would help. Once in a while you can get volunteers to help but the other curators would not help, which I find shocking. So one time when Rand Castile was director and I was in charge of the Indian show and my husband wasn’t home and I had two young kids, I had to go to the airport to get all these Indians. So finally, during the meeting, I said, “This is enough. I can’t handle this. Who is going to help me tomorrow?” So the director said he would. So guess what he did? He dropped the visitors on the pavement and drove away. That’s not how you do things. You walk them in there, make sure the tickets are okay, get luggage checked, and walk them into customs. Then you say goodbye to them. You don’t just drop them off. So at the end, I still have to do it myself.

06-00:39:00 Meeker: So there are some changes that do happen in the mid-1980s and I wonder if maybe you can talk about those in the time that we’ve got remaining today. One is that d’Argencé retires or leaves.

06-00:39:15 Bartholomew: He left.

06-00:39:16 Meeker: He left in 1985.

06-00:39:16 Bartholomew: Rand Castile came.

06-00:39:18 Meeker: And Rand Castile. Can you give me any insight into why it was that d’Argencé left?

06-00:39:25 Bartholomew: First of all, they were not happy with him because he was not a good fundraiser. Also, he was basically a scholar. He didn’t like to socialize with people. And many people resented that, that he would not go to parties and things like this. And then, of course, when you want to get somebody, it’s very easy, just find any old excuse. That’s what they did. They claimed that he was buying from one particular dealer. He may have received paybacks. But they checked. I don’t think he had any Swiss account hidden anywhere. It was not a happy period for us. But the commissioners, like the one you are interviewing, you should ask him.

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06-00:40:18 Meeker: Yeah, Sandy Calhoun. He did refer to something but he didn’t say anything so specifically. What was I going to say? How did you feel about his departure? It sounds like was a mentor to you in some ways.

06-00:40:35 Bartholomew: Yeah, he was a mentor. I felt very bad. But the museum’s changing and you do need people who can raise funds. But unfortunately they found somebody who could not raise funds.

06-00:40:47 Meeker: And d’Argencé had been there for nearly twenty years with the collection, too. Well, then, tell me a little bit about Rand Castile. Well, there was this guy Mark McLoughlin, who was the interim director. Do you remember anything about him?

06-00:41:03 Bartholomew: No. No, he was never the director. No, Shangraw was the interim director.

06-00:41:59 Meeker: Yeah, there it is. Shangraw went in as acting director. Well, my notes are incorrect.

06-00:42:07 Bartholomew: And then November 6th, then Rand Castile was named as director.

06-00:42:12 Meeker: Okay. Did you participate in the interviewing process for Rand Castile?

06-00:42:19 Bartholomew: Only when he was invited for lunch. We didn’t ask him questions. We were just observing him. He was nervous, of course, with all these people looking at him. But he was extremely friendly and down to earth. And at the least excuse he would break out the champagne. We had lots of champagne in those days. Anything to celebrate, okay, champagne party immediately. And he hated eating alone. During lunchtime he would come out, see whoever curator was around, just grabbed us, took us to lunch. And it was a wild time because he was so bad with money. We did not know that he used up the next year’s budget at his museum. And he was doing exactly the same thing. He would tell us, “Go out, get the best piece you have for the collection. Never mind the money.” And I said, “Who is going to pay?” He said, “Oh, don’t worry about it. Your job is to go find the best pieces.” So we listened to him. We were dumb enough. So Pat Berger and I, the Chinese curator, and I was the Indian curator, we would go and find the best piece, buy it, and then we were getting phone calls at home. “When are you going to pay us?”

So finally, the head of the commission was Marjorie Bissinger, and she got concerned because if anything happened commissioners were responsible. People on the acquisition committee, they were responsible to pay. So she got scared and put a stop to it. But one thing that helped us was the earthquake. So

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many objects that were sitting in the museum waiting to be paid, they got paid. And, with the insurance money from the broken pieces, we were able to buy a lot of art objects. So there was a very short time when we were rich.

06-00:44:16 Meeker: So the earthquake you’re referring to is the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.

06-00:44:19 Bartholomew: Yeah.

06-00:44:20 Meeker: I think that we had talked maybe a little bit about that before. So the main impact, it sounds like there were a few pieces that were—

06-00:44:30 Bartholomew: Chinese pieces that are very expensive. Just a few.

06-00:44:32 Meeker: What pieces were they?

06-00:44:34 Bartholomew: A ritual bronze. A Chinese ancient bronze from the Shang Dynasty was broken and some Kangxi seventeenth century blue-and-white pieces were broken. Like three or four. That’s all. And we were able to get just a lot of money from that.

06-00:44:53 Meeker: Insurance money?

06-00:44:54 Bartholomew: Insurance money.

06-00:44:55 Meeker: What happened to those pieces after they’re broken? Are they given to the insurance company or are tried to repair—

06-00:45:01 Bartholomew: No. We have some broken shards. They’re in storage. Some were repaired but you can’t display them anymore.

06-00:45:08 Meeker: You can’t?

06-00:45:08 Bartholomew: No. It’s been paid for already. Yeah. But I was able to get four very beautiful early thangkas which we did not have for the collection. And Pat Berger was able to get some really fantastic textiles for her collection.

06-00:45:26 Meeker: Did you ever get a sense of what Castile’s motivations were or expectations?

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06-00:45:33 Bartholomew: He was very innocent about money. You can spend but you also have to go out and find the money. It’s very simple mathematics. And he wasn’t able to raise funds. And he would bring in some really strange shows that made everybody angry, including the docents who refused to give tours. It was Venus Transmogrified. All the busts of Venus de Milo, but painted with different faces. So you walk into a forum, a Roman forum, all these columns with all these busts on them, with all these funny faces painted on Venus.

06-00:46:14 Meeker: How is this Asian art? I’m curious.

06-00:46:16 Bartholomew: Exactly. Because in those days this is modern art (the artist was Japanese). People were not used to seeing such things at the Asian Art Museum. The staff was unhappy. The docents just literally rebelled.

06-00:46:29 Meeker: How so?

06-00:46:29 Bartholomew: They refused to give tours. [laughter] Oh, boy.

06-00:46:35 Meeker: How did he respond? What was his justification for doing this and how did he respond to the rebellion, I guess?

06-00:46:41 Bartholomew: “Well, I always thought this is the Asian Art Museum. We should show all types of show.” I don’t care but it seems a bit out of place. But that was the beginning. And then later on we did have to put in some contemporary art and people do object. But now it’s full of modern art. Now it’s okay. It’s just slowly emerging from an old-fashioned museum to a new museum.

06-00:47:08 Meeker: Yeah. How did you feel about that process?

06-00:47:10 Bartholomew: I didn’t like it. I didn’t like these contemporary art—

06-00:47:13 Meeker: So to this day you wouldn’t advocate increasing the shows with modern art?

06-00:47:19 Bartholomew: I won’t say I won’t advocate but because you have to follow what other museums are doing. And everybody’s showing contemporary art. Even the museum replaced my job with a half position contemporary curator. But history has to go on. So that’s the way it is.

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06-00:47:40 Meeker: Another thing that was happening in the eighties, and I don’t know if you had any relationship to this, but I think in the mid-eighties there was a study done in the Civic Center recognizing that the main library was no longer suitable for the main library. The main library building was no longer suitable for the library. And there was also that empty lot, right, right across the street from the main library. And then I think ’86 or ’87, so even a few years before the earthquake, Mayor Feinstein begins to implement this plan which involved construction of the new main library and this beginning the plan of what was going to happen with the old main library. Were the curators consulted?

06-00:48:36 Bartholomew: No. Later on, when it was announced to us, we were really dead against it.

06-00:48:40 Meeker: Why is that?

06-00:48:41 Bartholomew: It’s not big enough. Also, because in the park you have the overflow from the Academy of Sciences and de Young Museum. Down there you stand alone. People did not realize it. We didn’t have to pay for the guards, we didn’t have to pay for the janitors. Suddenly you have to pay for so many guards and janitors. It’s very frightening. But mainly it’s we didn’t like the location. But later on I thought it’s good for the visitors because it’s opposite the bus station so people can come to the museum easily. Because in the old days, in Golden Gate Park, if you want to find a taxi, you can forget it. So transportation-wise it’s better downtown. But it’s so tiny. It’s really a tiny place. And the exhibition hall, when you go see an exhibition, it’s in three different sections.

06-00:49:37 Meeker: Yeah. That is a little difficult.

06-00:49:38 Bartholomew: You know why? The bookstore. They insist on being in the center of things because it just cut up the area. No, we are not happy with that building. And I’m not the only one. But if you want somebody who is for it, Alice Lowe. She’s on the committee, yeah.

06-00:50:00 Meeker: She liked the building. Okay. So the curators were never really brought into the decision making process?

06-00:50:09 Bartholomew: No, it was always the board of directors. They decide.

06-00:50:15 Meeker: What else can you tell me about Rand Castile’s period as director? Did he come in with a particular agenda, do you recall?

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06-00:50:30 Bartholomew: Well, he was trying to make us into an East Coast museum, and one good thing he did for us was forcing us to speak in public. Because usually we never have to speak in public. It’s only the director. So during openings and things he would say, “Oh, so-and-so come in. You tell people about this show,” and usually scared half of us to death because we weren’t prepared. But at least it forced us to speak. And during that time we began to have the Connoisseur Art Council. You know about that?

06-00:51:06 Meeker: Well, tell me about that. I have that written down.

06-00:51:09 Bartholomew: Because we did not have money after the earthquake, or before the earthquake. There’s never any money in the Acquisition Fund anyway, just a little bit. So it was Emma Bunker’s good idea. Emma Bunker is a scholar but she’s not associated with any museum. But she is from a rich family so she’s usually on the board of something, and she was a good friend and she came and gave Rand Castile this idea of have people becoming members, maybe pay $500 a year and at the end of the year have a party and have curators each offer one object. During dinner you have to get up and do your monkey act and do a good job and people will vote. They had fun. And that’s our only chance to get something. And, my God, in the beginning we were so scared. But later on we got used to it and I was especially good and aggressive about the whole thing and I usually win because that’s my only way to buy something for the Himalayan gallery.

06-00:52:17 Meeker: So can you give me some examples of objects that you advocated for?

06-00:52:23 Bartholomew: I bought a beautiful Mongolian bronze, this tall, and I bought thangkas. What else did I get? Oh, two beautiful lacquer book covers, Ming Dynasty, but Tibetan. I bought many things. Oh, and a beautiful laughing monk, about this tall.

06-00:52:49 Meeker: Laughing?

06-00:52:50 Bartholomew: Monk, a lama with a big smile on his face.

06-00:52:57 Meeker: How was it that you, if you will, sold these pieces to the Connoisseur’s Council? Was there a particular way that you thought that they would respond positively to a piece?

06-00:53:10 Bartholomew: Yeah, you kind of joke a lot, just make it into a funny thing with them and make them see this is the only one of its type, it’s so important, we have to

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have it. One curator actually said, “I’ll die for this piece.” So she got it that way. That was Kumja, the Korean curator.

06-00:53:27 Meeker: Do you remember what the piece was?

06-00:53:30 Bartholomew: It was a jar, a ceramic jar, I think. But she got some and I got a lot. The only department that was bad was China because the curator was lazy. And at the last minute, like one hour before, he would say, “Terese, what should I say tonight?” I said, “Don’t say anything. I’m going to win.” [laughter] I would prepare days in advance, even changing my speech when I was eating. Because I wanted it, so usually I won.

06-00:54:05 Meeker: And so basically what happens is once they select this item then they fundraise to purchase it?

06-00:54:10 Bartholomew: No, no, the money’s there already. And sometimes it’s not enough. So people would stand and say, “Okay, that’s not enough money. Would some of you give some money?” And people will. Yeah. So you get more to buy. Usually I’m pretty reasonable about the price, make sure that it’s within my budget.

06-00:54:31 Meeker: So was a fair portion of your time spent surveying the market in work?

06-00:54:35 Bartholomew: No. I couldn’t do that because, first of all, the museum won’t even send me to New York. But luckily, I have a lot of dealer friends and they find me something. Other people would use it as an excuse to go to New York to find something but I don’t have travel funds. I just managed. I would say most of my time was writing labels, getting ready for the next rotation. We are always rotating things. And it used to be four times year. Now it’s twice. So you have to select objects, make them go through all the committees, the conservators that conserve them, and then have to write labels.

06-00:55:19 Meeker: Is it a continuous process or does it happen—

06-00:55:20 Bartholomew: Continuous. It is continuous because the paintings have to be rotated because of the climatic conditions. And I always keep busy. I’m always writing. Because once you write, other people will ask you to write more and other people will ask you to go to symposium. So I go if it is interesting.

06-00:55:44 Meeker: Given that Rand Castile was more of a people person, if you will, than d’Argencé, did that impact the kind of educational outreach work that was being done in the museum?

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06-00:55:55 Bartholomew: I think in the eighties is when we began to have outreach. And when we did the show, we just did the show. But after he came, if we do the show, education department has to do something.

06-00:56:11 Meeker: So education department begins to change, I guess, from really the docent work to—

06-00:56:16 Bartholomew: Yeah, exactly. To dealing with the schools. Because I know definitely for this show they made a slide packet, a teacher’s packet. Those were very good. They made a lot, and give it to all the teachers free. Or maybe they pay the minimum sum. And give them the text so that they can teach the students and bring them back, and bring them to the museum to see the show. And this continued for every single exhibition after that. The education department would make a packet. I remember it was like one sheet of slides and then texts regarding the show and other material.

06-00:56:56 Meeker: Did you ever go out to schools and talk to student groups?

06-00:57:00 Bartholomew: No, it was the docents. The docents would do all that and the education department will do the packaging. Oh, before the show there will be a symposium for the teachers. I have to give them a talk and give them a walk- through. So that’s what we did. We did it in the museum (instead of outside).

06-00:57:18 Meeker: Mostly the teachers and students coming through there, San Francisco, Unified—

06-00:57:22 Bartholomew: No, no. Even the whole Bay Area. Yeah.

06-00:57:27 Meeker: Did you notice that there was a particular demographic for the students? Were they coming from all different sort of racial class backgrounds?

06-00:57:36 Bartholomew: Yes, all different.

06-00:57:37 Meeker: Okay. Were you getting a lot of students from Chinatown, for instance?

06-00:57:43 Bartholomew: Yes. Yes. Yeah. All colors.

06-00:57:49 Meeker: Well, it’s interesting. One of the points that Alice Lowe makes is that later on when they’re trying to get the Chinese community, in particular, onboard for

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the new museum, she heard a lot of criticisms of the lack of outreach to the Asian communities in the Bay area.

06-00:58:11 Bartholomew: All teachers came for those conferences. I guess the lack of outreach—yeah, there isn’t any. Like to go out to speak to the community? How. It’s not that easy to deal with Chinatown. Many of the people never leave Chinatown. Can you believe that? They live there all their lives. And there are young people who cannot speak English. They said, “Oh, we don’t care. We cannot speak English. We just stay here.”

06-00:58:43 Meeker: Golden Gate Park, in particular, is quite distinct from Chinatown, too?

06-00:58:49 Bartholomew: Except for archeological exhibition, when the first one came. Oh, my gosh, they all came out from the woodworks because this is the national heritage. First time they see these things. They all came.

06-00:59:02 Meeker: Interesting. Do you know if there was special advertising that was done in that case to bring the Chinese community out?

06-00:59:10 Bartholomew: I remember writing things in Chinese, giving it to Chinese newspapers. We tried. There’s always press conferences.

06-00:59:20 Meeker: And did that continue with subsequent exhibits?

06-00:59:22 Bartholomew: Yes.

06-00:59:24 Meeker: Okay. So, for instance, with The Hundred Flowers exhibit came out, would you have tried to do that kind of outreach to the Chinese communities?

06-00:59:31 Bartholomew: In those days we may not have press conferences. Later on we have press conferences.

06-00:59:37 Meeker: When they were bigger exhibits.

06-00:59:38 Bartholomew: Yeah. Little things, no. But I remember sending information to them. Yeah.

[End of Interview]

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Interview #4 May 21, 2013 Audio File 7

07-00:00:02 Meeker: Today is the 21st of May 2013. This is Martin Meeker interviewing Terese Bartholomew and this is tape number seven, I believe, of our interview for the Asian Art Museum. One thing I kind of wanted to start out asking you about today, and I think that this question relates to your interests broadly and kind of dovetailing off some of the conversations we had in the museum a couple of weeks ago [see the gallery walk-through tour, Interview #5 below]. And that is your interest perhaps more in the idiosyncratic as opposed to the grand. And you had mentioned this early in one of our interviews, where you had described in your graduate career at UCLA being interested in perhaps doing a dissertation on myths and symbols and rebuses already back in the 1960s. But your dissertation advisor really wanted you to do something on Chinese bronzes and you said that that was boring to you. And then when you gave a tour of different aspects of the museum, pieces that you chose, you went straight to the smaller, more idiosyncratic pieces that had, for lack of a better word, sort of inscrutable meanings, perhaps, or hidden meanings. And you shied away from the grand pieces that the museum is typically known for by the public. Is that an accurate description of your personal interests in Asian art?

07-00:02:01 Bartholomew: I guess so. I guess I’m strange. I like strange and weird things.

07-00:02:07 Meeker: Why do you suppose that is?

07-00:02:12 Bartholomew: I just like things with a deeper meaning. Not just huge grandiose things. The huge grandiose objects I guess I really shy away from them. Well, let somebody else describe them, right? But luckily, they are not in my jurisdiction so I get to play with the things I really like.

07-00:02:35 Meeker: Okay. But even when we went through the Himalayan galleries, there were a few items that might be considered grandiose or definitely eye-catching and you walked right past those and you went to the amulets.

07-00:02:54 Bartholomew: Because those are the things I find interesting and I thought the public might like it. And I like to introduce to them, you know, smaller things. There are many people who like small things. Like the snuff bottle case in the museum is one of the popular cases. The curators all stay away from that one.

07-00:03:14 Meeker: Yeah. Well, it’s interesting. Then in 1988 this is when you have your Myth and Rebuses in Chinese Art exhibition. And, again, this is one of the smaller

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exhibitions that’s typical of what happened in the 1980s when there’s not as much funding in order to do the massive exhibits. And you had already demonstrated your interest in hidden meanings and symbols. The hundred flowers is an example of that, right? And I guess for this exhibit and then the follow-up exhibit in 2006, the hidden meanings in Chinese art at the new museum—again, this is a continuation of your main interest. And why do you think it’s important for museum-goers in particular to understand these hidden meanings in Chinese art?

07-00:04:23 Bartholomew: It’s part of Chinese culture. And even many Chinese, they have forgotten about it. And I thought it’s fine. You look at a beautiful vase, you think it’s beautiful. But you have to know the meaning. And if the meaning is there, somebody has to tell the public about it. In my Myth and Rebus case on the second floor, those labels were very dense and so even Emily thought they were too dense. That’s why she made me put little drawings on the opposite wall. But I actually see people reading them, one after another. I was shocked. So people do want to learn when they come to a museum. I found hidden meanings interesting and I thought I should share. People should know about it. And I know people do enjoy it because that Myth and Rebus show, the very first one, it created a lot of interest.

07-00:05:19 Meeker: What sort of feedback did you get?

07-00:05:21 Bartholomew: Oh. We had teachers workshop where they brought the students into the museum and the little children were told to create rebuses and they did.

07-00:05:32 Meeker: Yeah, no kidding?

07-00:05:33 Bartholomew: Yes. Like, “I love New York.” Instead of love you have the heart on there. They could understand things like this. So it did some good work. And the rebus didn’t scare them at all during those days. But when I did the show in, what, 2006, “Oh, no, you can’t use that word. That’s a big word.”

07-00:05:54 Meeker: What was your original intended title for that show?

07-00:06:00 Bartholomew: I didn’t have any title. It was a show that the museum thought about as a way to sell the book and it was so sudden. I just barely had time to do the show and they said, “Oh, just use the name of the book.” So that was fine with me.

07-00:06:19 Meeker: The Hidden Meanings in Chinese Art [2006]. So the 1988 show, Myth and Rebuses in Chinese Art, was obviously at the old facility. And it received funding apparently from the National Endowment for the Arts, the California

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Arts Council, which maybe is what California Humanities is now, and also the city and county in San Francisco. In particular with the NEA and the California Arts Council, do you remember how you sold the idea of this particular exhibit to them, that might have interested them in it?

07-00:06:58 Bartholomew: I don’t think they just funded one show. They funded a lot of shows and I just got a tiny bit of money. I know there was a rock bottom budget and we didn’t even have money to do graphics, and the Japanese curator Yoshiko Kakudo did large calligraphy of blessings, longevity, and riches, and she did those and we put them on top of the cases. And so we didn’t really apply just for that show alone. I think usually every year the museum would apply for funds and I think when they applied for the money they didn’t know that I was going to do that show. But I can tell you about other specific ones, like Mongolia. Oh, we have to do a lot of work on those.

07-00:07:44 Meeker: Well, I do want to talk about that one in a little bit because that is a big show.

07-00:07:48 Bartholomew: Because that’s where we specifically went to apply for money.

07-00:07:53 Meeker: And it seems like that maybe is one of the first blockbuster shows that happens in a fairly long time or—

07-00:07:59 Bartholomew: No, not really. The Tibet show that happens—

07-00:08:04 Meeker: Right, 1991.

07-00:08:06 Bartholomew: —I think that was probably the first big one.

07-00:08:08 Meeker: Just let me ask one more question about the Myth and Rebuses. I think maybe it was in the beginning of the gallery pamphlet for that or perhaps it was an introduction to your own book from 2006. You had told that story again about being in a renaissance art class and kind of falling asleep and then the instructor starts to talk about the meaning of the cherry and the lily and then all of a sudden it becomes interesting to you because it’s not simply a formalist paining of Madonna and Child, the meaning’s much deeper. I wonder what does the preponderance of symbols and rebuses, for instance, all throughout Chinese decorative art in particular, reveal of Chinese character in particular?

07-00:09:14 Bartholomew: It reveals the secret wishes of the Chinese, what they want in life. The things that everybody wish about but they do it pictorially.

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07-00:09:26 Meeker: Interesting. Why do you suppose that is? Just from an anthropological perspective? That these wishes need to be communicated in all of these different and sometimes hidden ways?

07-00:09:44 Bartholomew: Well, to the Chinese it’s not hidden. It’s right there. They know it. Because in speech we use those four character phrases. Also, it has a lot to do with gift giving. And say if you are an official and I want to be in your good books, I’ll go and buy you a present. So I’ll give you a horse with a monkey sitting on it. So when you see it, you know immediately what was the wish. I guess it’s a subtle way. I don’t know. No, I guess in America, when you give gifts, they don’t have any meanings. It’s like we give a housewarming gift, we give a vase. A vase means peace, like this is to wish that you have peace in your household, so there are many vases in Chinese households.

07-00:10:36 Meeker: Yeah. In the United States, if you give a vase it’s because it’s an attractive piece of ceramic.

07-00:10:45 Bartholomew: Right, right. Yeah. I don’t know. It’s a Chinese characteristic. What do you think? [laughter]

07-00:10:55 Meeker: [laughter] I’m a historian, not an anthropologist. But I think you provided a perfectly reasonable explanation for it.

07-00:11:05 Bartholomew: It’s like during Chinese New Year. You put all these good luck things all around the house and you say it. Those phrases are right there. And I was watching in China what they would do because they are not supposed to go back to the old fashioned ways of saying things. So I walked by a kiln and it says, “May the glaze come out bright.” [laughter] I said, “Wow, how appropriate.” Because other shops would say, “May tons of money come in every day.”

07-00:11:47 Meeker: Are these auspicious sayings and symbols? Were these, to a certain extent, removed or did they go out of fashion or were they prohibited to a certain extent during the Cultural Revolution?

07-00:12:03 Bartholomew: Yes, but it’s part of the speech of the people. It’s like during a Chinese wedding, when the bride kneels down to pour tea for the in-laws, there should be an older lady standing next to her mumbling all these four character phrases. So the majority of us, we don’t necessarily know them all but somebody would know them and we want them at the right occasion. In fact, my nephew is getting married this weekend and he is giving me five minutes to talk about all the wedding symbols. So all these things will come out and

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people will understand them. Because the minute you say it they know the four character phrase. But if they look at the symbol, it doesn’t mean that they may know it because they may not have seen them before.

07-00:12:59 Meeker: I’m thinking about western culture and the influence of Christianity and how perhaps prayer maybe takes the place of auspicious phrases and these kinds of symbols. Because people definitely hope for wealth and health and happiness and children. But I think it’s not done necessarily in the same way. I’m trying to get a sense of your interest in this and also perhaps how it’s communicated throughout the museum.

07-00:13:51 Bartholomew: It’s like the textiles that people wear, beautiful ones. They always have meaningful symbols on it and when we give money in red envelopes, they have all the right symbols. For weddings, for birth of a baby, for new year, and those were all written out in phrases of four characters. Even the American banks are giving out red envelopes now. So we actually use these symbols. You see it in hangings, you see it in calendars, in furniture. They’re everywhere in the Chinese household. Like these mean something, the gourds behind you.

07-00:14:32 Meeker: What do those mean?

07-00:14:34 Bartholomew: But that’s more philosophical. The vessel, if it isn’t empty, it’s not going to serve people. So you have to remove all the insides, all the seeds, before you can make a gourd into a wine vessel. So this is to remind you that you shouldn’t have a big ego, like get rid of everything in you before you could help others. I read it from a van Gulik novel once.

07-00:15:02 Meeker: A what novel?

07-00:15:02 Bartholomew: Van Gulik. Oh, that’s a very wonderful series of books. These are all detective stories written by Robert van Gulik, who was a Dutchman, a sinologist, and he started to translate Tang Dynasty mysteries. And he said afterward, “I can do it myself.” So he started his Judge Dee mysteries. You should read one of them.

07-00:15:28 Meeker: All right. Well, let’s move on a little bit because I do want you to tell me a little bit more about some of these exhibits, and in particular the Wisdom and Compassion: Sacred Art in Tibet from 1991. According to what I was reading, it seems like this is one of the first big exhibits that happens for you.

07-00:15:51 Bartholomew: For me, yes. But not for the museum. Archeological was the very first one.

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07-00:15:56 Meeker: But there was this period of the 1980s where it seems like the exhibits were typically smaller, not as many pieces coming in from outside the museum. So how was it that you were able to make this exhibit happen?

07-00:16:16 Bartholomew: I didn’t make it happen. I agreed to it. When you do a huge show it has to be generated within the museum or from another museum. This show was different. I was done by two scholars, Robert Thurman and Marilyn Rhie. So it was their idea of putting this huge show together and they offered it to all the East Coast museums and they all turned them down. So they came out and they used an actor, Richard Gere. I remember he was sitting outside my office and people rushed in and said, “Terese, Richard Gere is outside.” And I said, “Who?” Because I didn’t see movies that often. So Richard Gere came to sell the show to Rand Castile, and I thought about it. I know it’s always difficult when you work with outside curators, and it proved to be very difficult. But I said, “Okay,” because I knew, this area was full of hippies in those days and they all liked Tibetan art. I said, “It should be popular. Let’s just do it.” Plus, I like Tibet anyway. So we did.

07-00:17:25 Meeker: How was it that they were going to assemble all of the items that were going to be shown? Exhibited?

07-00:17:33 Bartholomew: They have this idea but there’s no way two people can do it. You need a museum. So what we did was we sent out letters. But we did go to Europe. I went with Marilyn Rhie and Patricia Berger, and the three of us, we traveled everywhere looking for objects. So sometimes I would say, “I’m sorry, the condition is too bad. It’s too dangerous. We can’t have this one.” Because scholars, they don’t have all these practical ideas behind them. So we know. We don’t want the conservators to scream bloody murder at us so we’re very careful at what we select. So we had fun. We went around selecting everything.

07-00:18:16 Meeker: Well, when these scholars came to you, did they have a pretty clear idea of what it was that they wanted to exhibit?

07-00:18:21 Bartholomew: Yes.

07-00:18:23 Meeker: What was the exhibition statement, if you will? What were they trying to do with this exhibit?

07-00:18:29 Bartholomew: Wisdom and compassion. Because the way to enlightenment is you must have both wisdom and compassion and they are represented by all the images inside and they divide it in a very simple way. Buddhist, Bodhisattvas, and

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then from very simple and to very complicated deities, like the Cosmic Buddhas, and then the mandalas. So it was fun. And Rand Castile made it very clear to them that I as the Himalayan curator should have some contribution, like an essay. So I wrote my essay. They didn’t like it. They didn’t put it in. So I said, “That’s fine with me.”

07-00:19:08 Meeker: What did you write about?

07-00:19:08 Bartholomew: The article was on Sino-Tibetan art because my field was Sino-Tibetan art. Because some of the objects in the show were made in China for the Tibetan high monks but the two guest curators, they just didn’t like Communist China so they didn’t want anything to do with it. So they said, “Oh, no, it’s not appropriate. We don’t have any space.” So Shangraw said, “Go publish it somewhere else.” I said, “Fine.” So we got it published in Orientations. But it didn’t bother me because I had better things to do than to deal with ego issues.

07-00:19:45 Meeker: So what role did you play in the actual curation of this exhibit?

07-00:19:49 Bartholomew: Hard work. Setting up the show. Writing labels. Actually, for once I had an assistant for the show. So we have somebody who knew Tibetan. Richard Kohn came and we all worked on the labels together.

07-00:20:00 Meeker: The funding of the show came from where?

07-00:20:05 Bartholomew: Wow. It’s major. Unless I check the catalog I can’t remember who gave us the money. I’m sure NEH has to be in there as one of the major ones. And for that we have the use of a grants writer because it was too big for the museum to handle. It’s a lot of writing and we gave and checked over the information. We supplied the photographs and ideas. There are many things that the curator has to be involved when you apply for a grant because you’ve got to think what kind of activities are we going to have with this kind of show so you have to discuss with the education department.

07-00:20:43 Meeker: It sounds like the grants writer was a contract professional?

07-00:20:47 Bartholomew: Contract.

07-00:20:48 Meeker: Has that changed over the years? Did they ever have a permanent full-time one?

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07-00:20:54 Bartholomew: Now we do. Now we do. But before we didn’t. They were too busy raising money and nobody had time to write grants.

07-00:21:03 Meeker: Was this a pretty exceptional circumstance, then, that they hired a professional grants writer?

07-00:21:10 Bartholomew: Yes.

07-00:21:11 Meeker: Yeah. And I assume that they probably would have done that through funds raised from individual donors, people perhaps like Richard Gere?

07-00:21:19 Bartholomew: Frankly, they didn’t give us that much money. We were hoping he would. But no. I have to check—maybe a little bit of money from there. We did the majority of the fundraising. It was somebody called Harold Fischer—Hal Fischer. So he did it for this show and also for the Mongolian show.

07-00:21:47 Meeker: Oh, he was the fundraiser?

07-00:21:49 Bartholomew: Yes.

07-00:21:49 Meeker: Ah, okay. Well, I do want to ask you about the Mongolian show, which comes on a few years after this. I assume that this show was both a mixture of Brundage collection pieces, as well as pieces—

07-00:22:08 Bartholomew: No, no, no. It’s all over the world. Major collection with probably four or five pieces from us.

07-00:22:17 Meeker: Was this the exhibit that you said received some criticism?

07-00:22:22 Bartholomew: No.

07-00:22:22 Meeker: No. That was the Nepal exhibit?

07-00:22:24 Bartholomew: It was objects. No, that was another Tibet show that came out from Tibet. See, but this one came from all over the world. It didn’t come from Tibet. The objects came from Tibet but they have left Tibet. So that was fine.

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07-00:22:40 Meeker: How was then the geopolitics of doing a show about the sacred art of Tibet handled?

07-00:22:50 Bartholomew: What do you mean geopolitics?

07-00:22:51 Meeker: Well, meaning how to deal with the question of is Tibet an autonomous country or culture or is it part of China.

07-00:23:06 Bartholomew: In my gallery if it came from Tibet, I put down Tibet. If it came from China, I put down China. And people do object. Many of the local Tibetan followers, they say, “This is obviously a Tibetan piece. Why did you say it’s China?” I said, “Well, it’s made in China.” See, they didn’t know. They can’t tell the difference. But this is something we have to be very careful about. In fact, the maps of the galleries, the boundary lines are always a problem. So what did I do? I think for my Tibetan gallery I just wrote Tibet straight across Tibet, and put China on the other side. [laughter]

07-00:23:50 Meeker: So maybe no clear boundaries.

07-00:23:51 Bartholomew: See, I would not knuckle down to any of the local embassies here, the consulates. But something happened and Forrest just listened to the Indian government. I said, “We can’t have them telling us what to do. A map is a map.” Before you know it, the Chinese government will be coming and say, “Oh, I don’t like this line between India and China.” So the best thing is to tell them, “Go away.”

07-00:24:17 Meeker: Or I imagine the disputed area of Kashmir also would be difficult.

07-00:24:23 Bartholomew: Yeah. So you just cannot knuckle down to anybody. Just tell them to go away. That’s what I would do.

07-00:24:30 Meeker: Interesting. Can you maybe describe the process of installing and displaying and curating an exhibit that is—so, for instance, the Myth and Rebuses, which was primarily, if not all, Asian Art Museum collection versus the Wisdom and Compassion show which was substantially different in that regard.

07-00:25:00 Bartholomew: In Wisdom and Compassion, you have to actually go to a museum and look at the piece first because just by looking at the photograph is not good enough. So most of the sculptures are fine but in the British Museum there was a beautiful thangka and it has raised gesso (plaster?) on it, like icing a cake.

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They artist squeezed all these lines on it. And I took one look and I said, “No.” First of all, it is so huge you cannot roll it up, and if you roll up the thangka, the raised lines will crack. I said, “No, I won’t touch this one.” And the guest curator said, “Okay, we choose something else.”

07-00:25:35 Meeker: Because the textural that would fall off?

07-00:25:37 Bartholomew: Yeah. Exactly. Insurance is something you worry about. If you make too many mistakes they will make you pay a higher premium.

07-00:25:47 Meeker: Are there many examples in some of the shows that you played a role in curating where there was damage to loaned art and how did you deal with that?

07-00:26:00 Bartholomew: I don’t think we ruined anything before except one time when we had a mounts maker and he waxed down a certain object and when the wax was removed removed it pulled off a piece of the object. But that piece happened to be a repair so the curator who came to the show said, “Oh, this is old repair. That’s okay.” Yeah. But some of our own objects were broken in Hundred Flowers Show, when they were traveling, and that was no fun.

07-00:26:33 Meeker: How did the museum deal with that?

07-00:26:35 Bartholomew: Well, the insurance company dealt with it and gave the broken pieces back to us. Gave us the money. But we could never display those objects again. It was quite a pity. Two very beautiful pieces.

07-00:26:48 Meeker: Where did they get broken?

07-00:26:50 Bartholomew: In some small museums in the Midwest. Yeah.

07-00:26:55 Meeker: So I guess that would have an impact on future loans from the Asian Art Museum.

07-00:27:00 Bartholomew: Right.

07-00:27:00 Meeker: How do those policies get established?

07-00:27:04 Bartholomew: When things happen. That’s when you made them policies.

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07-00:27:07 Meeker: Okay. Well, then how do you determine which museums are eligible to borrow your work and which aren’t?

07-00:27:15 Bartholomew: Usually it has to be accredited. That’s standard. If you’re not accredited we can’t let you borrow anything. So that’s the main rule.

07-00:27:23 Meeker: But is that the only level of discernment?

07-00:27:29 Bartholomew: They also ask about security. “Do you have twenty-four hour surveillance?’ and things like this. You ask them a whole bunch of questions.

07-00:27:36 Meeker: What about reputation?

07-00:27:39 Bartholomew: It was fine. Yeah. If it is part of the American Association of Museums it’s okay.

07-00:27:45 Meeker: Okay. So there aren’t some museums who maybe are part of the American Association of Museums but don’t have the best reputation in the world, right?

07-00:27:53 Bartholomew: Well, they were so desperate for money they would let the objects travel.

07-00:28:00 Meeker: Yeah. Was that actually an income stream?

07-00:28:04 Bartholomew: Yes. But in reality, you get $2,000 per venue. That’s not enough. It’s putting the objects at risk. No, it’s not a good idea unless they pay a lot of money.

07-00:28:17 Meeker: So as curator it sounds like you were somewhat opposed to—

07-00:28:21 Bartholomew: No, I don’t like to see our objects travel.

07-00:28:24 Meeker: At all?

07-00:28:25 Bartholomew: At all.

07-00:28:26 Meeker: Well, then, how do you feel about actually borrowing objects from other museums? Does that also make you nervous?

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07-00:28:32 Bartholomew: Yes, very nervous. But what can you do? Sometimes you have to. So when you choose the objects you just have to be absolutely careful that there’s nothing wrong with the object.

07-00:28:48 Meeker: So a few years after, I guess it’s four years after the Wisdom and Compassion show is the Mongolia show: Mongolia: The Legacy of Chinggis Khan (1995). And I guess I’m revealing some of my ignorance around Asian history. But I didn’t understand the close relationship between Tibetan Buddhism and Mongolian Buddhism. Was there an understanding when you did the Tibet show that it would be interesting to also do something about Mongolia at that point?

07-00:29:28 Bartholomew: No. We didn’t even think about Mongolia. It happened that Mongolia just received its independence from Russia. Remember all those countries were breaking up?

07-00:29:38 Meeker: Sure. Yeah. This was 1990.

07-00:29:41 Bartholomew: So a group came. It was a delegation from Mongolia coming to America and they visited the museum. They said, “Oh, please come to our country and arrange a show.” So okay. So that was stuck in our mind. We didn’t say anything. And then a few months after that another person came and was telling us that he represented the government and he wanted to do a show. So I remember rushing into Pat Berger’s office. I said, “Hey, shall we do this together?” And she said, “Yes, let’s do it.” Because she was also very interested in Buddhism in those days. So we went to Mongolia and found out that this man was just a businessman, and we were horrified. But somehow another man from Palo Alto was there and he found out everything. That, oh, we made a mistake. We shouldn’t have talked to this man, we should talk to the government. “And I have arranged for you to talk to the government.” We couldn’t speak a word. Everything was through interpreters and I brought along photos of the Tibetan exhibition. I showed them photographs. I showed them a catalog. I said, “Okay, this is what we do to borrowed pieces and we produce a catalog. And if you let me borrow your objects, we’ll do a show for you.” And luckily there was one man who understood English but refused to speak it and it was Enkhbayar, who became president later on.

07-00:31:10 Meeker: What was his name?

07-00:31:11 Bartholomew: Enkhbayar. E-N-K-H B-A-Y-A-R. Unfortunately he’s in jail right now because the politics are too much. So he helped us. He thought that was a good idea. And prior to going there we read four books on Mongolia, picture

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books, so in my mind I have an idea of what the quality should be. So we were brought to three museums. So you go in there, take one look, immediately make up your mind. There’s no changes. You make up your mind what you want, and we did. So that night at the hotel I would type up my list and Pat Berger would write the story, the storyline. She would write the proposal. Her English is much better than mine, and she was very good. So she would write that part and I would take care of the objects part. And of all the objects I have chosen I only made one change. It was a statue this high and finally, when I took one look at it, it was missing its male organ. I said, “Oh, my God. No, this won’t do.” So I went back to the museum, said, “Can we change?” And then they said, “Why?” I said, “Well, it’s missing something.” So they all laughed and said, “Okay, okay, you can change.” [laughter] So we changed to something else.

07-00:32:31 Meeker: How long was this trip that you and Pat Berger took?

07-00:32:34 Bartholomew: It was less than a week. It was really frightening because you are going to a new place without any hotels that just got independent and is just pretty wild and you don’t know the language.

07-00:32:48 Meeker: Can you tell me how you actually got to Mongolia because this was just, you’re right, a couple of years.

07-00:32:53 Bartholomew: Yeah, we didn’t even know. We flew to Beijing and from Beijing you take Miat, M-I-A-T, which is a Mongolian airlines. And we walk all around the airport, couldn’t even find it. It was stuck in the corner. And the minute you lined up, all the Mongolians rushed to the counter. It was like a free for all. And threw the luggage over the counter. So Pat Berger and I just looked. And I said, “What is happening?” And we went in and they overloaded the plane.

07-00:33:25 Meeker: Did they even have reservations or—

07-00:33:27 Bartholomew: Yes. But nobody obey anything. So they have people sitting on the toilet. Like emergency exit, somebody would be sitting there. It was just totally wild.

07-00:33:38 Meeker: Do you recall what kind of plane was it? Was it a jet engine or was it—

07-00:33:42 Bartholomew: It was a Russian plane and I remembered it was a Russian trained pilot so the plane dropped straight down like a helicopter. The whole thing was frightening and wild, but we did it. And one good thing was the director was Rand Castile. And he said, “Oh, if you have this good idea, go ahead and do

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it.” So he was very permissive. Now we couldn’t even get it through the chief curator. It would never happen. Yeah.

07-00:34:16 Meeker: Well, so, it sounds like this businessman came to you and suggested that Mongolia is open now, it’s time.

07-00:34:25 Bartholomew: We thought he was legit.

07-00:34:27 Meeker: Yeah, but he wasn’t.

07-00:34:28 Bartholomew: He wasn’t.

07-00:34:28 Meeker: Was he Mongolian himself?

07-00:34:29 Bartholomew: Yeah.

07-00:34:30 Meeker: Okay. So it sounds like the museum actually fronted funds for you and Pat Berger to go—

07-00:34:39 Bartholomew: Mr. Gerstley.

07-00:34:40 Meeker: Mr. Gerstley funded it.

07-00:34:41 Bartholomew: Mr. Gerstley had a fund mainly for travels for exhibitions. So we are forever grateful to him. Otherwise there’s no money.

07-00:34:49 Meeker: And this exhibit would have never happened.

07-00:34:51 Bartholomew: No. So when we came back, then we applied for grants, so Hal Fischer came in and we give him all our photographs that we took in Mongolia and then he went and signed a contract with the Mongols. This is something we cannot do, and he was very tough.

07-00:35:11 Meeker: Well, I want to hear more about this actual trip. So the plane lands I guess in Ulan Bator, is that correct?

07-00:35:17 Bartholomew: Yeah, yes. And this American man first who took the Mongol to come see me was there. So he came to me and said, “I’m sorry. We made a mistake. You

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cannot go to his hotel. I already found a hotel for you. Don’t have anything to do with this man.” So Pat and I looked at each other. Who do we trust? This was a gangster type from Palo Alto and meanwhile there was the man that we agreed to work with. So we had to make a snap decision and we said, “Okay, we’ll follow the American.” And the Mongol was very angry at us. There were huge screaming fights between the interpreters and everything else.

07-00:35:55 Meeker: And this was at the airport?

07-00:35:56 Bartholomew: Right at the airport. So this man from East Palo Alto, he just took over. He was the gangster type. He said, “Okay, you come with me. I got you a hotel.” And the hotel was the Czech Consulate that was just turned into a hotel. And I remembered going in there and checking the bed sheets. They were pretty clean, except I saw tiny little spiders everywhere. Have you read the story the Ninth Buddha?

07-00:36:24 Meeker: No.

07-00:36:25 Bartholomew: Anyway, it talked about Mongolia and the death scene at the end was the wound burst open in the child’s neck and all these little spiders came out. I was like, “Oh, my God, what have I got ourselves into?” [laughter]

07-00:36:40 Meeker: [laughter] They’re going to lay eggs inside of you.

07-00:36:42 Bartholomew: Yes, exactly. And there wasn’t enough food. We ate a lot of cabbage. But they were pretty creative in what they do. A lot of blood sausages. So Pat Berger refused to tell me what I was eating because if I knew that it was blood sausage I won’t eat it. And the whole thing was so strange because nobody could speak English and Pat Berger used French sometimes. And then Chinese would come out of her when she was supposed to be speaking French.

07-00:37:19 Meeker: Interesting. But were you able to communicate with some people given your language skills?

07-00:37:25 Bartholomew: Mine was Chinese. It’s not used.

07-00:37:29 Meeker: It’s not used there?

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07-00:37:29 Bartholomew: No, see, there’s Outer Mongolia and Inner Mongolia. Inner Mongolia would speak Chinese. Outer Mongolia, they don’t speak Chinese.

07-00:37:35 Meeker: And that was the Russian influence.

07-00:37:37 Bartholomew: Right. It’s very Russian. But once we had the okay from the government, they just let us choose whatever we wanted. Except I wanted some really beautiful gold jewelry but they were all locked up into the state banks so they said, “No, you can’t borrow those.”

07-00:37:57 Meeker: Can you describe the actual city itself? The look and feel of it.

07-00:38:01 Bartholomew: It was very Russian, wide squares. Russian type building, kind of boring. But once you get out to the countryside it’s absolutely beautiful. I remembered coming from the airport. It’s all these very high horizon and low hills. It’s like Montana and Idaho. All these areas with all these hills and little gophers sticking their heads out from the ground. And also I was disappointed because when you study Chinese poetry they talk about all these grassland, when the wind blew the grass will part and you see the animals underneath. The grass was this short, like two inches. And I said, “Hey, where’s the grassland?” Apparently that is a different part of Mongolia. But outside Ulan Bator was very interesting. And then you see all these tents, all these gers, that’s what they are called. And you can just walk into one and they welcome you as guests and they go out and kill a sheep and serve it to you. The people are very nice. They drink a lot. So what we did was to hide our cups underneath the table and just refused to drink.

07-00:39:17 Meeker: What did they serve?

07-00:39:19 Bartholomew: Vodka.

07-00:39:19 Meeker: Vodka. Because that’s Russian influence.

07-00:39:21 Bartholomew: Yeah. But it was like going to a wild country. And they did take us out to visit some preserves. And Buddhism was just making a comeback because the Communists killed all the monks. They kill monks and the monks buried all their treasure somewhere else. So now things are coming out. And I remember going to see the lama and ask him to bless this show, whether it would be successful or not. He said, “Yes, it will be successful.” And the second time we stayed for two weeks. And the third time we cleaned every single object. We brought conservators and the conservators cleaned sculptures and the

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photographer was there for one month. So he took pictures. The minute one piece was finished he would photograph it, and all the paintings have to be cleaned and framed. All the framing took place there. Did it? Maybe the framing took place when the objects came to America. But everything, all the statues, they all have to be cleaned beforehand.

07-00:40:38 Meeker: Was that one of the reasons why they were willing to allow so many of their precious pieces of art to travel?

07-00:40:45 Bartholomew: Yes.

07-00:40:45 Meeker: Was that they knew it would be preserved?

07-00:40:47 Bartholomew: Right. We told them we would take very good care of them and they would be cleaned before we would take them. Yeah.

07-00:40:53 Meeker: Come back in better condition than they left.

07-00:40:54 Bartholomew: Yeah. Yes, they did. And we also framed all the paintings for them. Yeah.

07-00:41:00 Meeker: Was it difficult to find works of art that you wanted to display? I read the catalog for this. Obviously it makes clear that the Mongolian people are nomadic people and so they’re not going to have stationary kinds of artwork that you might find in Western Europe or in Beijing. How is a curator who is interested in selecting pieces, how did you find pieces that you thought were of interest or value to show?

07-00:41:42 Bartholomew: Go to museums. All the best pieces are in the museums. And also they have the equivalent of a Dalai Lama called the Bogdo Khan. So he had his power until just—he died maybe in the forties and fifties. So many of these great art came from his palace and the palace was made into a museum. So we were able to borrow really good things. Whereas, say, you just walk around and say, “Okay, this is good. Take this one.”

07-00:42:13 Meeker: Were you surprised at the quality of the museums there? Or at least the content of them?

07-00:42:20 Bartholomew: Yes. Yes. I guess it’s the Russian way. They do keep things very nice in the museums.

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07-00:42:30 Meeker: Did you have certain expectations of what you would actually find before you arrived there?

07-00:42:33 Bartholomew: Yes. Because I have read books published by a Mongolian scholar; one scholar published four books: one on sculptures, one on paintings, one on decorative arts. So we already have some idea of what is quality. And I guess I’m very lucky. I can choose things very fast. I guess my eyes were trained just by working in the museum.

07-00:42:56 Meeker: Well, what kind of criteria were you interested in? What kind of criteria were you using?

07-00:43:03 Bartholomew: I was like basing the theme on the Wisdom and Compassion because that was the first show I dealt with. So we kind of followed that format.

07-00:43:15 Meeker: Meaning what was—

07-00:43:15 Bartholomew: You start with the simple figures of Buddha and bodhisattvas and then get more and more complicated. Yeah. And Pat Berger helped a lot in forming the themes of the show. And we have a section on the Bogdo Khan and objects from his museum. And we are also threw in things like beautiful saddles because people love things like that, and there are all kinds of interesting objects, and jewelry. Mongolian jewelry is quite beautiful. But our trouble is mainly not enough background material for us to know, and everything’s in Russian and we don’t have good interpreters. So we borrowed some really nice things that a man would use, hanging from his belt, and they happened to be very large. And afterwards, when we got it, then one Mongolian curator who came finally told us through an interpreter that, “Oh, this belonged to the giant.” There was a giant who was a servant to the Bogdo Khan and these were his ornaments. So I wished I knew about it beforehand but there’s no way for me to know.

07-00:44:25 Meeker: Knew about it beforehand meaning so—

07-00:44:27 Bartholomew: Before I wrote the catalog. So you just write to the best of your ability without any help. Pat Berger gathered all the Mongolian books and we just sat there and read. In fact, a miracle happened. It’s outside Kansas. I forgot the name of a town. It’s outside Kansas City. We went there to give a conference and we went to a bed and breakfast place and it was a professor’s house. So, of course, the first thing we did was go to check out the library. And I said, “Pat, I don’t believe this.” It’s all Mongolian books. Books that we had wanted but couldn’t find. Apparently he was a geography professor and he collected all

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the books on Outer Mongolia. So we just sat up that night and just took notes. So I thought, “Wow, this is a gift from heaven,” because we were writing the catalog then.

07-00:45:26 Meeker: Well, so after you come back from the first visit, this is when you start the fundraising, correct? Did you find it difficult to find people or institutions that were interested in funding it, particularly because—with Tibet you have a lot of people who are interested in Tibetan freedom and Buddhism. Obviously when you were doing a show on Korea you were going to probably have funds from Korean businessmen here as well as the Korean government. Was it difficult to secure support and funding for a show about Mongolia? There probably was not much of a Mongolian population here in California. It wasn’t a country that was known for its riches.

07-00:46:20 Bartholomew: We had parties and local people gave us money. I think major, major money. And also I was very lucky in getting the major funding. It was NEH or NEA, I forgot what.

07-00:46:39 Meeker: Well, I think it came from both, actually.

07-00:46:40 Bartholomew: Both. And you were fighting against curators, like Dr. Pratapaditya. And I remember he was screaming at me later on. We were good friends. He said, “Terese, how come you got it and I didn’t?” So I said, “Dr. Pal, you should find out who is on the board.” Because Dr. Pal has many enemies and I don’t, frankly. I’m friendly with all my colleagues, and one of my colleagues was sitting then on the board.

07-00:47:06 Meeker: On the selection committee for what, the NEA or the NEH?

07-00:47:10 Bartholomew: Yeah. And that person was Dr. Pratap’s enemy so, of course, he didn’t get it and I got it. So it’s pretty dangerous when you apply for grants because anything can happen.

07-00:47:26 Meeker: There’s also risk involved for pursuing an exhibit like this. Not only was there the investment for travel required but there’s also the investment to pay someone like Hal Fisher to write these grants. And it could very well be that the funding just won’t come through for it.

07-00:47:46 Bartholomew: Yes. So we were very lucky.

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07-00:47:49 Meeker: Why do you think it was successful other than you having a friend on the grant committee?

07-00:47:53 Bartholomew: I think Hal Fischer was pretty good. And also, Pat Berger was very persuasive. Because we went to a lot of parties where we have to give presentations. So people gave us money.

07-00:48:09 Meeker: So regular donors to the museum.

07-00:48:11 Bartholomew: Yeah.

07-00:48:14 Meeker: Do you recall what the final budget was for this exhibit?

07-00:48:16 Bartholomew: No. See, I’m very bad with numbers. And that’s not my concern. My concern was writing the catalog and selecting the objects. All those were taken care of by other people.

07-00:48:29 Meeker: I wonder about the internal politics of putting on this show because this is just as Rand Castile’s term is coming to an end and Emily Sano has already joined as the chief curator and then she then becomes the director by the time the exhibit opens, right? In other words there was a leadership shift in the museum between, say, ’91 and ’95.

07-00:49:06 Bartholomew: I thought Rand was there for the opening of the Mongol show. I don’t know.

07-00:49:18 Meeker: She wrote an introduction, a short introduction to the catalog.

07-00:49:20 Bartholomew: Okay. So that means she was director then.

07-00:49:22 Meeker: I think. But I think it might have said interim or acting director at that point. So she probably hadn’t been fully named. It seemed like both Pat Berger and Rand Castile had been gone by that point in time.

07-00:49:37 Bartholomew: Pat was gone at the end. Pat was gone when we were packing the show in Mongolia.

07-00:49:45 Meeker: So the catalog came out when the show opens, correct?

07-00:49:52

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Bartholomew: Right. So when we went to pack the show, the proofs were already coming in and luckily we had a very good PhD student Kristina Youso and she just took over because I wasn’t there.

07-00:50:06 Meeker: It seems odd that you have this big show that I guess—was it a success as far as attendance.

07-00:50:12 Bartholomew: Yes, definitely.

07-00:50:14 Meeker: Yeah. But in the context of all this, both Castile and Berger left?

07-00:50:24 Bartholomew: Castile and Pat Berger both left. I ended up as the major curator for the show. Pat was the co-curator because she loved Mongolian art and I could not have done it without her.

07-00:50:36 Meeker: That was the Charming Cicada studio?

07-00:50:42 Bartholomew: Right. Yeah. But luckily, by that time she had finished writing and I had finished writing. No, it was a very difficult time and I also took over her job at the same time. So for two years I knew I didn’t take a single vacation.

07-00:51:05 Meeker: Because you were heading up the Chinese division?

07-00:51:08 Bartholomew: And I was too dumb. Like asking for more pay. I never remember things like this. [laughter] Just working my tail off.

07-00:51:18 Meeker: One of the things I found interesting in the catalog for the Mongolia show was that very brief introduction written by the minister of culture from Mongolia.

07-00:51:33 Bartholomew: Oh, that must be Enkhbayar.

07-00:51:34 Meeker: Yeah, perhaps. I don’t remember the name. Really it’s the opening of Outer Mongolia to the west. And this is a signal moment in the history of that country coming to take a different place in the world stage.

07-00:51:59 Bartholomew: It was a very important show. It’s the first time people hear about Mongolia. And what was wonderful was—I don’t know whose idea was it, maybe education department. To buy a yurt and put it right inside the museum and

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have it all setup and people just simply loved the show. They can get inside and play around and sit on the chairs and put on costumes.

07-00:52:25 Meeker: Ah, okay. Was that your idea?

07-00:52:27 Bartholomew: No.

07-00:52:30 Meeker: That was the education department?

07-00:52:30 Bartholomew: Yeah. Because I didn’t have any money. So anything big was their idea and I agreed to everything. I thought it was wonderful. The only thing was there was a little stove and the fuel wasn’t there. Guess what they used? It was animal droppings.

07-00:52:46 Meeker: Oh, really?

07-00:52:47 Bartholomew: Yeah, patties. So I said, “No, no, no, no. We have to make it authentic.” So we got some sawdust and flour and I made a whole bunch and baked it in my oven and put in green coloring and soy sauce. And they looked like real ones. So I put it there and the Mongols thought that was real. So I just wanted to be authentic. So we had fun.

07-00:53:11 Meeker: So you, I assume, had some of these government officials attend the opening?

07-00:53:16 Bartholomew: Yeah. And there was a curator with the show the entire time.

07-00:53:20 Meeker: A Mongolian curator?

07-00:53:22 Bartholomew: Mm-hmm.

07-00:53:22 Meeker: What did they think of the overall show?

07-00:53:26 Bartholomew: They love it because, of course, we do things in a more grandiose way than the way they do it. Our lighting is much better. And they learned about security, how we secured the objects. So it was a good learning experience for them.

07-00:53:40 Meeker: I wonder, was there any involvement from anyone from the State Department, for instance, given that this was such a key moment and cultural exchange.

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07-00:53:59 Bartholomew: Yeah. But they told me no because they have to count every single piece of coral. And I said, “Uh-oh. That’s dangerous.”

07-00:54:09 Meeker: Yeah, I noticed that. So most of the Mongolian artwork had kind of red—

07-00:54:15 Bartholomew: Oh, those masks were so absolutely beautiful. Here. [Looking at a photograph of a mask decorated with red coral.]

07-00:54:19 Meeker: Where did they get coral?

07-00:54:22 Bartholomew: From Italy. That means they got it from Tibet. The traders who came to India. India sent it up to Lhasa or maybe Lhasa people came down. And then the Mongolians probably bought it from Lhasa. It’s strange. Red coral only came from the Mediterranean. But that’s what the countryside looked like. High horizon. Yeah. Enkhbayar, so he became the president later on. Prime minister and president and right now his opponent locked him in jail. They didn’t want him to run again. I thought I put down how many people came to the show. I guess that’s gone. Let’s see. Oh, and we got all these people to help us. Jim Bosson, a professor at Berkeley. He was so good. And Lou Lancaster. Morris Rossabi is one of the top scholar on the East Coast. Okay. [Looking at the exhibition catalog.]

07-00:55:42 Meeker: So the major funding statement is right here.

07-00:55:45 Bartholomew: Okay. Major funding. National Endowment, Henry Luce, National Endowment. Oh, we got both. Yeah. Okay. Joyce Clark. These people gave us a lot of money.

07-00:56:02 Meeker: So that’s Joyce and John Clark of the Carlson Marketing Group?

07-00:56:06 Bartholomew: Right. And Dr. and Mrs. Bruce Alberts. Oh, the Skaggs Foundation gave us money. Asian Cultural Council. Else Carr. Okay, I don’t know some of these. Oh, yes, Anne and Cameron Dorsey. That’s a friend of mine. So Martha. Yeah. Soros Foundation. Very good funding.

07-00:56:32 Meeker: Do you recall what the statement was? What the argument was to be used on behalf of funding for this exhibit?

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07-00:56:43 Bartholomew: Nobody had brought back a Mongolian show before. It was the first of its type. So people always get excited. It’s a new country. And we brought back very beautiful photographs and people were just impressed. Wow.

07-00:57:07 Meeker: Is there any Mongolian material within the permanent collection at the Asian Art Museum?

07-00:57:15 Bartholomew: From Inner Mongolia, yes, from Outer Mongolia, no. But after that, people gave me two pieces.

07-00:57:25 Meeker: Donated pieces?

07-00:57:28 Bartholomew: Donated, mm-hmm. Where is it? This piece. This was Johnson Bogart, one of our head commissioner.

07-00:57:46 Meeker: Sure. So this is figure five.

07-00:57:49 Bartholomew: Mm-hmm. So it’s a seated Buddha, by Zanabazar. So he said, “Terese, you must come to my house because I have a Mongolian piece that I purchased from London.” So my first reaction, I said, “I don’t believe it.” You don’t find Mongolian pieces in London. So I went to his house, I took one look and it was indeed Mongolian.

07-00:58:08 Meeker: How could you tell?

07-00:58:10 Bartholomew: This very tall triangular base and this very simple appearance of the Buddha. The lotus petals arranged like this and the bottom has a gilt double thunderbolt. That’s very Mongolian. Then it has just a little plaque on it and it says, “J. Johnson.” Where is it? So it was during 1860s when the foreign soldiers sacked the palace, sacked the Yuanming Yuan Gardens and one quartermaster took this piece and went off to England with it. That’s why they have it. This was a palace piece given by the maker to the emperor of China and the maker was Zanabazar, the first Bogdokhan.

07-00:58:56 Meeker: And is it so specific in its meaning that it would be impossible to really fabricate something like that?

07-00:59:04 Bartholomew: No. Because this man says 1860 expedition. So he had the nerve to put his name right in the center of this (base). I couldn’t find it. J. Johnson, Quartermaster, 99th regiment, China Campaign, 1860.” And Johnson Bogard,

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that’s his name, that’s why he bought it, Johnson. So I told him, I said, “Jack, I’m sorry, this is too good for you. We don’t have any Mongolian piece. You give it to me and I’ll publish it.” So I published that.

07-00:59:40 Meeker: And now it’s part of the museum.

07-00:59:40 Bartholomew: Of course. Yeah.

07-00:59:41 Meeker: Is it actually on display?

07-00:59:42 Bartholomew: Oh, yeah, it’s on display.

07-00:59:44 Meeker: In what gallery would you put it?

07-00:59:45 Bartholomew: In the Himalayan gallery.

07-00:59:47 Meeker: Okay. So culturally or geographically Mongolia is considered part of Himalayan—

07-00:59:54 Bartholomew: Because of the religion. Oh, you were asking me why. Thirteenth century. The Mongols conquered Tibet by threatening them and they sent hostages and the hostages were Tibetan monks.

Audio File 8

08-00:00:00 Bartholomew: [Explaining the arrival of Buddhism to Mongolia.] So the hostages were a Mongolian monk and his nephew and they were able to convert Kublai Khan to the religion. So Tibetan Buddhism became the state religion. When the Chinese kicked the Mongols out (14th century) they went back to being nomads again and their religion was forgotten. Then some of the chieftains wanted to rise up again to be just like Genghis Khan and Kublai Kahn. So they needed religion. So that’s when the third Dalai Lama of Tibet was invited to go to Mongolia and reconvert the Mongols. So that was sixteenth century. By that time Mongolia was very powerful and if you look at the map of China it’s pretty frightening. Like this much, the Mongols are there and Beijing is here. So the Manchus, when they took over, they were afraid of the Mongols and the only way to control them was through religion. So the Manchus also took on the same religion and used the monks to control them. The Qianlong emperor said so. He said, “The reason why we took on this religion is because we have to control the Mongols.”

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08-00:01:26 Meeker: Interesting. What was the Chinese religion before that?

08-00:01:30 Bartholomew: The emperors? They’re not supposed to have any.

08-00:01:33 Meeker: Okay. Because they are the gods?

08-00:01:34 Bartholomew: No. Because religion didn’t really enter politics. No. There’s ancestral worship. You worshiped the heaven. These are the things you do. Several times a year you go pray in the Temple of Heaven and pray for fertility for the earth. That’s it. But the Confucian scholars, they frowned on emperors having any particular religion. But the Manchus are not Chinese. They were Manchus. So that’s okay if they have their own religion.

08-00:02:07 Meeker: Interesting. And what dynasty was that?

08-00:02:10 Bartholomew: Qing.

08-00:02:10 Meeker: The Qing Dynasty.

08-00:02:11 Bartholomew: Yeah, 1644 to 1911.

08-00:02:16 Meeker: Okay. I found it interesting, correct me if I’m wrong, but the first Dalai Lama was named in Mongolia. Is that correct?

08-00:02:24 Bartholomew: The third Dalai Lama. He was given the name dalai. It means ocean, great. Nothing greater than the ocean. So the third Dalai Lama in turn gave it to his two predecessors. So first Dalai Lama, second Dalai Lama. But the third one was the first dalai, was really the Dalai Lama.

08-00:02:42 Meeker: And actually came from Mongolia.

08-00:02:43 Bartholomew: Mm-hmm. Because he went to Mongolia to convert the Mongols. Yeah.

08-00:02:49 Meeker: So the reason that this Mongolian piece is in the Himalayan gallery is a cultural connection.

08-00:02:55 Bartholomew: Cultural connection.

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08-00:02:57 Meeker: Not a geographical one?

08-00:02:58 Bartholomew: No. Also there are Chinese pieces in there because they all belong to the same religion. People ask me why is Mongolia up in the Himalayas? “Well, it’s the religion.” Yeah.

08-00:03:10 Meeker: Was it a difficult thing to do to stage a major exhibit like this in the old museum?

08-00:03:16 Bartholomew: No. We just kicked the Chinese gallery back downstairs. That’s one reason why I never wanted to be a Chinese curator.

08-00:03:25 Meeker: Why is that?

08-00:03:26 Bartholomew: A lazy reason. Every time there’s a show you take the entire gallery and move it downstairs. It’s horrible. I did it so many times even though I wasn’t the curator.

08-00:03:38 Meeker: Because the temporary exhibitions were on the second floor, I guess.

08-00:03:40 Bartholomew: No. There wasn’t any. There’s a tiny little room where we stage all the hundred flower show. And that room is like maybe ten times the size of this. That’s it.

08-00:03:53 Meeker: Where did you have the Mongolia show, for instance?

08-00:03:54 Bartholomew: The entire first floor. Anytime we have a show, it’s always first floor.

08-00:04:01 Meeker: Okay. And when you said you sent it downstairs, that means you put it into storage.

08-00:04:04 Bartholomew: In the basement. And it’s major. Like moving all the stone sculptures. That’s very frightening. And moving the bronzes. They’re liable to break on you. No. So that was one reason for the move, is so that we can have a permanent place to have temporary shows.

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08-00:04:24 Meeker: Well, can we talk a little bit about that because I do want to talk about this big transition that happens. Did you ever play any role in any of these bond initiatives?

08-00:04:36 Bartholomew: No.

08-00:04:37 Meeker: You never were asked to come speak or to advocate or do anything like that?

08-00:04:42 Bartholomew: No. They have lots of people doing it. Plus I won’t understand anything anyway.

08-00:04:48 Meeker: Okay. Do you have anything to say about the relationship between the museum and the City of San Francisco? The City of San Francisco owns the collection.

08-00:05:10 Bartholomew: Right. They control our budget.

08-00:05:12 Meeker: And were you always an employee of the city?

08-00:05:15 Bartholomew: I am always. The first batch of people, original batch, we are all city employees. Then we follow what de Young Museum did. When the city start cutting budget, every time a city employee leaves, that job will be moved to the foundation. So his salary stays within the budget but the new person is paid out from the foundation. So pretty soon all the newcomers were paid for by the foundation, which is not really fair because the retirement is not as good. The whole thing is just not as good.

08-00:05:59 Meeker: What was the reason for doing it that way?

08-00:06:02 Bartholomew: So that you can have a larger budget. Instead of salary, that money goes into general funds. The city gives you that much money. You can spend it any way you like. So the only way to have more money is to have the foundation pay for the newcomers. So now it’s probably less than ten people left in the museum who are city employees.

08-00:06:24 Meeker: I assume over the years that you were able to hire people to work for you, correct, in your department or not?

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08-00:06:32 Bartholomew: Not really. The only time I’m given an assistant is during major shows like the Tibet show and the Mongolian show.

08-00:06:40 Meeker: And those are temporary positions.

08-00:06:42 Bartholomew: Temporary positions. I was a one-man department.

08-00:06:49 Meeker: Okay. Were there ever any issues that you remember about the city ownership of the collection but then the increasing power of the foundation over hiring and management of the museum itself?

08-00:07:07 Bartholomew: The city department doesn’t really—they don’t step into the museum. We take care of things within the museum. They just give us money. That’s all.

08-00:07:19 Meeker: So as the curator of various collections you didn’t really experience city auditors coming in and checking your work and making sure that as a curator or the conservators are doing their job correctly.

08-00:07:34 Bartholomew: No.

08-00:07:33 Meeker: It was more of a hands-off experience?

08-00:07:35 Bartholomew: Right.

08-00:07:37 Meeker: Do you have any thoughts on challenges and/or benefits of being a city owned museum in comparison perhaps to some other museums that you’ve come to know?

08-00:07:54 Bartholomew: Well, in the old days we had a wonderful budget and we had money to do shows and to publish. So that was very good. But that was only in the beginning. It just went from bad to worse. Every year there was a budget cut and we have all these meetings on how to save money. And some of our commissioners would go and talk to the city people. But we are not concerned because we don’t have the power to do that. So it’s all between the commissioners and the city. And I know that budget hearings, they would all go. But no. We just did our jobs. We not involved.

08-00:08:38 Meeker: So you didn’t get involved in any of those meetings?

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08-00:08:39 Bartholomew: No.

08-00:08:39 Meeker: Did you feel like this was still a city owned collection, even if many of the employees were not city employees?

08-00:08:52 Bartholomew: I feel this way but I may be the only one. Because we used to have a free service called Public Day. Now they call it Members Day. And I felt that as a city employee you have to serve the people of San Francisco. So once a month they bring things in there and you tell them what they have. And when Michael Knight came in and he said, “No, no. We should just give it to high paying members,” and I was really mad about it. But what can I say?

08-00:09:23 Meeker: Are there any other ways in which you see your work or the work of the museum being politicized given the fact that it is a public institution?

08-00:09:32 Bartholomew: Not really. I think they tend to forget us, the cultural side.

08-00:09:42 Meeker: Yeah. So it’s not as important if it’s not social services or politics or something like that. Well, maybe we can talk a little bit about the new museum, right. Because this is a process that begins as early as, what, ’87, I think.

08-00:10:06 Bartholomew: When Rand Castile was still here there were talks.

08-00:10:10 Meeker: Sure. Dianne Feinstein, who was mayor at the time, this is when they started to identify the fact that the library was going to move to a new location and then the question is what to do with the old library. And it was identified fairly early on that this would be a potential site for the Asian Art Museum to move to.

08-00:10:32 Bartholomew: Prior to that, there was also the plot of land on Kearney Street near Chinatown. That belonged to—

08-00:10:39 Meeker: [Walter] Shorenstein.

08-00:10:40 Bartholomew: —Shorenstein. But it never happened. We knew that someday we had to move but just didn’t know where. And when we thought we were moving to the library we all said, “Oh, boy, that area is so bad.” So there was a group of people within the museum, many of the docents, they were really against that. Yeah.

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08-00:11:00 Meeker: What did you think about it?

08-00:11:04 Bartholomew: I have a practical reason for not wanting to move. Because many of our attendance, they come from overflow, from people coming from the academy. They come over and see us. People from de Young Museum. So I was afraid that we may not be able to stand alone. But we seem to be able to. And also, one thing they did not realize was we had two guards. Once you go to your new museum you have to pay for all the guards and all the janitors. We didn’t have to pay them before because it was part of de Young Museum. So it’s very difficult.

08-00:11:48 Meeker: The square footage of the new space is how many times larger than the original?

08-00:11:54 Bartholomew: I wouldn’t know.

08-00:11:56 Meeker: But it’s at least twice as big you would say?

08-00:11:58 Bartholomew: Yes. No. I think our permanent galleries are much smaller.

08-00:12:04 Meeker: Oh, really?

08-00:12:05 Bartholomew: Oh, definitely. And our exhibition space is so horrible. You just don’t tell people to go to three different areas to go see one show. It has to be continuous. I think part of the reason was the bookshop. They want to be in the center of the museum and people have to cater to the bookshop because they make so much money. So I don’t know. We are not involved. Let’s be honest.

08-00:12:34 Meeker: Well, as the curator, and you were going to be asked, I assume, to play a role in the design of the galleries and the display of the items within your purview. When did the management of the museum bring you and your colleagues into the planning process?

08-00:12:56 Bartholomew: When they had an architect. You have to tell the architect how to design it. That’s when we were brought in. But no, it was a local firm who did it, too. But it wasn’t very fair because it was based on the footage of the old museum. And the way the museum was divided came from the very beginning, when you didn’t have an Indian curator. So what happened was that China got the bulk of it, the first floor. Second floor Japan got most of it. So they left a very

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tiny area for Southeast Asia and a slightly bigger area for India, and Tibet was just the end wall of India. So for the new museum I kept on saying, “That’s not fair. This is because of people being very territorial, in the very beginning of the museum, that’s how they cut up the area. You don’t follow those plans.” But that’s exactly how they followed. And I also objected to the jade room. I said, “People come to see jades. You don’t make the jade room to be such a tiny place.” But it must be for political reason they made it so small. Why I don’t know. I thought that’s ridiculous.

08-00:14:06 Meeker: Well, jades are small.

08-00:14:07 Bartholomew: No, we have plenty of jades. You don’t put tiny jades like six foot high. Who can see them? Yeah.

08-00:14:15 Meeker: Well, the jade room in the old museum was the centerpiece.

08-00:14:18 Bartholomew: Huge. Yes, it was huge. Did you ever remember it?

08-00:14:24 Meeker: I was there as a child.

08-00:14:25 Bartholomew: Oh, it was very impressive.

08-00:14:27 Meeker: Yeah. I remember a circular thing though. It was quite impressive.

08-00:14:31 Bartholomew: The donut.

08-00:14:34 Meeker: Yeah. [laughter] Do you remember having conversations with your fellow curators about what you saw as an unjust distribution of gallery space?

08-00:14:46 Bartholomew: Oh, we talked. But the architects just ignored us.

08-00:14:53 Meeker: They were architects who had done museums before. I know that the main architect, Gae Aulenti had done the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, a world class museum. Did you have any thoughts about the kind of work that they had done in other museums and how that might impact the design of this space?

08-00:15:16 Bartholomew: I didn’t get to see the d’Orsay until much later so I can’t really say.

08-00:15:28 Meeker: As a curator, what do you think of the d’Orsay, I wonder?

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08-00:15:33 Bartholomew: I think of being forced to go up to the very top and then come down. Exactly what was being done here. It’s just okay.

08-00:15:40 Meeker: So with the arrangement of the escalators. One you go to the very top and then making your way down. What about the workspaces, the behind the scenes spaces. Did you play a role in any of the decision making around how those were designed?

08-00:16:01 Bartholomew: We again objected because every office was about the same size. And I said, “Hey, curators have to do research. We just don’t work with a computer. We need spaces where we spread our books.” So it’s just impossible to work in those offices. [laughter] If you had come into my old office, you could barely come in. There were books on the floor, books everywhere.

08-00:16:26 Meeker: So it sounds like your overall evaluation of the new space is thumbs down.

08-00:16:32 Bartholomew: Yes. And walking, my God. The building is a block long. So it’s U-shape. The elevator is here, my office is right there. So you had to walk one block, half a block, and another block. Two and a half blocks to get to my office. My ankles were swollen the first few months and I couldn’t understand why.

08-00:16:59 Meeker: Because you were walking so much. Yeah.

08-00:17:02 Bartholomew: Of course during installation you walk a lot.

08-00:17:04 Meeker: Was there no sense of excitement when you moved in or or—?

08-00:17:08 Bartholomew: Well, of course there’s excitement. There’s also sadness in leaving the park. Yeah. I did something that I have never done before. I started buying flowers for my office.

08-00:17:20 Meeker: You started buying flowers?

08-00:17:21 Bartholomew: Yeah, because I wanted the park. You just look at concrete outside. So there was a farmer’s market every Wednesday and I would buy roses or something that would last a whole week.

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08-00:17:36 Meeker: You’ve continued to obviously be involved in the museum even after your retirement. Do you have a sense of how the public has interacted with the new space?

08-00:17:52 Bartholomew: They like it. I think they like it. And also people say that it’s easy to get to. Public transportation. In the park, you are stuck there. Without a taxi you are just stuck there. So that’s at least one good thing, better transportation.

08-00:18:06 Meeker: Has that influenced your overall valuation of the space now that we’re approaching—well, I guess that’s ten years since it’s been opened.

08-00:18:15 Bartholomew: Yeah. I’m still not happy with the temporary exhibition space and I think they are making new plans to do something about it. Because it just doesn’t work that way.

08-00:18:31 Meeker: Yeah. They could conceivably redesign the first floor and make a singular space.

08-00:18:38 Bartholomew: No, I heard that they’re going to change the third floor.

08-00:18:42 Meeker: Oh, okay. Interesting. Well, the third floor is where the—

08-00:18:47 Bartholomew: That’s India. My God, all the sculptures. It’s so hard to put up a stone sculpture because you have to clamp it and this and that.

08-00:18:58 Meeker: Interesting. Let’s see here. I think the last exhibit I want to get you to talk a little bit about, and I know that we’ve already talked a lot about these exhibits in general. But the Hidden Meanings in Chinese Art from 2006. Now, I didn’t see the actual physical exhibit but this obviously was in the new location. Was it a major exhibit? Was it in the temporary galleries? The exhibition areas?

08-00:19:34 Bartholomew: You know what? I’m just trying to think. I think it was just one room, the big room. It was very popular. I don’t know. It’s just like a dream. I was busily writing the book and then in the middle of it they told me to do a show, which I thought was ridiculous. So it was done, it was popular. So everybody’s happy.

08-00:20:05 Meeker: Well, usually the show comes first and the book comes second, right?

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08-00:20:08 Bartholomew: Right, but the book comes first. So they say, “Oh, this is the catalogue for the show,” which is a lie. No, Emily wanted me—she always wanted me to write this book and she knew that I wanted to write this book because when we were in Texas she was asking me about—because she had seen my brochures. How I don’t know. She had those. And I said I wanted to do it but I never have time because we were kept so busy with the changing exhibitions and also big exhibitions coming in. I never have time to write. So somehow, because of my friends, this Japanese lady kindly donated the money, Frances Bushell. So because of her encouragement I started to write and it was mainly at home on weekends.

08-00:21:00 Meeker: Did her funds help the actual publication of the book or did it buy some time for you?

08-00:21:06 Bartholomew: No, it didn’t buy time for me. It just paid for the publication. The museum had no money. So after that the books were all sold out within a few months and I had to go back to her and asked for money for the second printing, and those books were gone. As for the third printing, that’s when Director Xu came in and he wanted me to talk to my aunt, which is just—Chinese do not ask relatives for money. It’s just against our grain. So I told my aunt. I said, “Okay, you give your money but please do one thing for me. Tell them the money from the sales of the book should be put aside towards the fourth printing.” And she said, “Do I have the power?” And I said, “If you have the money, you have the power.” So that was in writing. But what happened to the money, I don’t know. I don’t trust the museum when money is concerned. Before you know it, it’s dumped into the general fund.

08-00:22:06 Meeker: Have they thought about putting it out in paperback?

08-00:22:10 Bartholomew: I thought that was out in paperback. Yeah.

08-00:22:15 Meeker: I’ve only seen the library copy so—

08-00:22:17 Bartholomew: Because the paperback probably got sold first, I think. Yeah. No, they do have two types.

08-00:22:26 Meeker: How long did it take you to put that book together?

08-00:22:27 Bartholomew: The painting part took me three years. It was three years’ worth of weekends. My daughter would come and we would do coloring or do the actual painting.

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Writing part was fast because it was all in my head anyway. I just have a list of objects and just went through and just did it.

08-00:22:45 Meeker: And you didn’t have to create an argument or tell a long story?

08-00:22:49 Bartholomew: No, there’s no story. It’s just this is it.

08-00:22:52 Meeker: It’s a compendium.

08-00:22:53 Bartholomew: Yeah. I found it very difficult. And that’s one reason why I didn’t want to write it, because it’s a dictionary. And I’m not disciplined enough to be very consistent. When you write a dictionary you got to be consistent and I know there’s inconsistency in there. But I’m glad I did it because most of it is gone from my head now. It’s forgotten.

08-00:23:23 Meeker: What sort of response did you get from other scholars and curators to this?

08-00:23:27 Bartholomew: It was very good. Just recently I got a note from a Taiwan curator. It says, “Your book helped me finish writing this jade catalog.” Because it was all iconography so my English is better than hers so she just used what I wrote. They don’t have anything like that in English. There are small articles by other people but this is the first major book. So it’s useful for me, too, because when I look I say, did I say that? Really I have forgotten.

08-00:24:09 Meeker: You described working with Emily Sano in previous interviews, describing her as being somewhat demanding and difficult. But it also sounds like she also was encouraging of your own interests to a certain degree?

08-00:24:24 Bartholomew: She was encouraging of my writing but not when I worked for other museums.

08-00:24:32 Meeker: Because you would occasionally do consulting work?

08-00:24:33 Bartholomew: Yes. Because I like to do exhibitions and it’s frustrating when I don’t have any exhibitions to do. And I found that very soon, once I moved to the new museum, so many people were fighting to do exhibitions. And whatever I suggested—like I wanted to do an arms and armor show, they just ignored me. Can you imagine every weekend you have all these kung fu people come and demonstrate? You have Japanese ones, you have Filipino ones. People will swarm to the museum. Right? No?

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08-00:25:09 Meeker: So you had an idea to do this at the Asian Art Museum.

08-00:25:12 Bartholomew: Yes.

08-00:25:13 Meeker: So what is the process when you’ve got an idea? What are the steps that you need to take?

08-00:25:19 Bartholomew: There’s an acquisitions and loans committee. So curators would present their ideas. So usually it’s a slide presentation. I showed them really beautiful weapons from all Asian countries. I like weapons.

08-00:25:31 Meeker: Including in your own collection?

08-00:25:32 Bartholomew: No, no, no. No, I don’t have much.

08-00:25:34 Meeker: Well, not your collection but I’m sure the museum’s collection—

08-00:25:37 Bartholomew: Oh, yeah. China, Tibet, Japanese. Like all the samurai swords we have. And it’s not that. We have sword guards. There are so many things associated with martial things. And then you have paintings showing war scenes. It’s just not weapons. There’s a lot of other things with it. And we have bronze age weapons. All kinds of things. But somehow they said, “Oh, it’s so minor.” Because everybody is selfish. They wanted to have a show. Sometimes I’m not a fighter. I just get mad and say, “Okay, I have other things to do.”

08-00:26:18 Meeker: Well, there’s a competition of ideas and space.

08-00:26:20 Bartholomew: Yes. And some of the ideas were so stupid. And the end result is nobody came to see the show. There was one curator, uh-oh, should I say things like this? Did what I call kiss-ass shows. It’s just kissing asses, hoping to raise money from certain people and show their artwork, knowing that those artwork will not be popular. Why should we even waste money doing things like this?

08-00:26:47 Meeker: Well, the museum has an ethics committee, right, that attempts to try to prevent things like that from happening or—

08-00:26:55 Bartholomew: Are you kidding? No, it doesn’t work. When it comes to raising money, say, “Oh, okay. Maybe we can get money from this person. Let’s do his show.” And nobody else would come to see the show. It was just a waste of money.

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And meanwhile I have all these good ideas. I’m not bragging. Whatever show I did, they’re always popular, or always made money for the museum.

08-00:27:19 Meeker: Well, this arms show could conceivably be a local blockbuster.

08-00:27:24 Bartholomew: Exactly.

08-00:27:25 Meeker: Think about the kind of audience that it might attract.

08-00:27:28 Bartholomew: Chinatown did the Bruce Lee show and it was so popular. So I said, “Okay.” So later on when the museum really needed money, they came back to me and said, “Let’s do the show.” I said, “Sorry, I have no more interest.”

08-00:27:42 Meeker: Do the curators vote or who is it that makes those decisions?

08-00:27:52 Bartholomew: No. Members of the exhibition committee, usually commissioners.

08-00:27:54 Meeker: Okay. So they are presented with potential exhibits and the commissioners then decide?

08-00:28:01 Bartholomew: Yeah. And, of course, they listen to Forrest [McGill].

08-00:28:05 Meeker: What was your relationship like with him? Did he come on right after Shangraw leaves?

08-00:28:13 Bartholomew: He came after Emily became director. Emily was afraid of the curators. Really afraid.

08-00:28:22 Meeker: Why is that?

08-00:28:23 Bartholomew: Before she came, she announced to people that she wanted to get rid of all the curators. And she did. She got rid of several. And we knew that before she came.

08-00:28:39 Meeker: What was her objection to the curators?

08-00:28:46 Bartholomew: Frankly, I don’t know. It was just not a good relationship. Basically she was an okay person. She was fair. But it’s just we were not used to having

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directors scream at people, literally scream. And we had a very small office. Just not a pleasant place to work. She actually came into my office and screamed at me and started jumping up and down and I had a piece of Plexiglas on the floor, so I was just looking at it to see when it was going to break.

08-00:29:37 Meeker: Was this just her personality or were there particular things that set her off?

08-00:29:41 Bartholomew: It’s no fun being a director. You’re always under pressure. So she’s like a thing about to explode any minute. So any little thing she would start blowing her top. But it’s okay. Well, at least one good thing she did was to at least encourage me to write that book.

08-00:30:02 Meeker: It’s interesting. You outlasted her.

08-00:30:07 Bartholomew: Yeah.

08-00:30:09 Meeker: What was your secret for succeeding in that difficult atmosphere?

08-00:30:16 Bartholomew: I loved my work. I loved the objects. There’s so much to learn down there. I can’t say I know the collection. Every time I go in I see something new. And I’m not just interested in Tibet and India. I’m interested in the whole thing, even Japanese art. And even now, when they needed some help people would call me and say, “Terese, this is the year of the snake. Can you give me some snakes?” And I said, “Don’t be ridiculous. Go talk to the individual curators.” But they’d rather come to me because I could give them answers right away, so I know the collection.

08-00:30:53 Meeker: You know the collection.

08-00:30:54 Bartholomew: Yeah. And also I love to write so there’s obviously lots of things for me to write about. So they can scream and yell all they want. I do my own job. Also I don’t waste my time plotting and scheming. There are lots of people doing that in the museum. I’m too busy.

08-00:31:15 Meeker: Sano retires in 2008. When did you retire?

08-00:31:23 Bartholomew: After her.

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08-00:31:26 Meeker: You had obviously been around for a few decades at that point in time. To what degree were you consulted when there was a consideration of whether she was going to stay or not?

08-00:31:41 Bartholomew: No.

08-00:31:44 Meeker: No one asked?

08-00:31:44 Bartholomew: No one asked us.

08-00:31:45 Meeker: This was a board decision?

08-00:31:47 Bartholomew: Yeah, a high up thing.

08-00:31:49 Meeker: What role did you play in the selection of Jay Xu?

08-00:31:54 Bartholomew: Oh, no, nothing. In fact, if I knew he were coming I would have stayed. The only reason I left was because my husband was retired and he wanted me to retire and I said, “No.” And he said, “Well, at least go talk to the people in retirement and see what you get and all that.” So I said, “Okay.” Then I found that I’ll be making more money.

08-00:32:17 Meeker: If you retire?

08-00:32:18 Bartholomew: If I retire. And by that time I was tired of having big fights with Forrest all the time so I said, “Okay, I will quit.” So part of it was money. If I’m getting more money, why should I work? Because I had no idea. In fact, in your retirement you have less than your salary, but the big deductions are gone. So the take home pay is more than when you were working. So I said, “Why should I work anymore?”

08-00:32:50 Meeker: So Jay Xu wasn’t selected as director until after you started your retirement?

08-00:32:55 Bartholomew: Yeah. He came months later.

08-00:32:58 Meeker: Why is it that you say that you would stay? How is he different?

08-00:33:02 Bartholomew: He’s Chinese, he’ll be more understanding.

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08-00:33:08 Meeker: Of?

08-00:33:08 Bartholomew: Of things in general.

08-00:33:11 Meeker: Well, I wonder about that because there’s obviously a question of the museum, the Asian Art Museum, and the role played by Asians or Asian Americans in the museum.

08-00:33:27 Bartholomew: Also he’s a scholar. Because my first director was a scholar. I want a director who’s a scholar. Emily’s not a scholar. Rand’s not a scholar. So it’s different. Very different.

08-00:33:39 Meeker: What was his background? Or what is his background?

08-00:33:44 Bartholomew: Xu is in art history. So he was getting his PhD and he got it within the year. I thought that was great.

08-00:33:57 Meeker: Where did he come from?

08-00:34:00 Bartholomew: He came from Chicago. He went to Seattle. So he took Michael’s job and he went to Chicago and took Steven’s job. Yeah. So he’s a good curator. What I missed was publication, museum publication. When Rand came we barely had money to publish anything and I feel that there’s so many things we can publish. It’s just nowadays who has the time to write.

08-00:34:47 Meeker: I have some final kind of wrapping up questions to ask. One of the things that I’ve been interested in about the Asian Art Museum overall is based on this phrase that Brundage would use describing the museum as a bridge to understanding.

What do you consider the relative importance of the Asian Art Museum as an art museum displaying beautiful works of art that can be appreciated in a formalist way, right, versus as an institution that is supposed to assist with cultural understanding.

08-00:35:37 Bartholomew: It should be both.

08-00:35:39 Meeker: Is one more important than the other?

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08-00:35:41 Bartholomew: No, I think they are the same.

08-00:35:44 Meeker: How are they the same?

08-00:35:46 Bartholomew: It has to be beautiful and yet it should help people understand the culture. And that’s what the museum is. You go in, you don’t have to look at the labels. But if you want to learn, you look at the labels. And also it’s a place of refuge. I think anytime tragedy struck, people came to the museum just to sit around. Like 9/11. A lot of people just came to sit down. I don’t know. A place of refuge. But that’s what the museum is.

08-00:36:28 Meeker: You first went to the museum, what was it, in 1968?

08-00:36:33 Bartholomew: Yeah.

08-00:36:37 Meeker: Have you noticed much of a change in the population of people coming to the museum and their ability to understand?

08-00:36:52 Bartholomew: We have the usual people, mainly white from the top echelon coming, and we have tourists from all over America. So you have two different types. And the third one’s the students. It’s still the same. I think now we may have more young people. And the old people are gone so now you have the younger people coming. And also all those late night parties every Thursday. You see a lot of young people coming. And I thought the programming’s very good. And sometimes we were asked to give talks. Short little talks. That’s usually well received. So it’s changing.

08-00:37:44 Meeker: When the museum was first established and opened in the mid-1960s, this is just fifteen years, twenty years after the end of the Second World War And Sandy Calhoun talked about Japan Society getting restarted. That people in the United States of course didn’t have much appreciation for Japanese culture at that point and so needed to play a role in re-igniting interest and appreciation. China was closed to the West until well after the museum opens.

08-00:38:33 Bartholomew: Nixon.

08-00:38:34 Meeker: Nixon goes to China. And, of course, there are also some other important changes in other countries throughout Asia. Does it seem to you that that mission of needing a bridge to understanding is still as relevant today as it was in the sixties?

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08-00:39:01 Bartholomew: Yes. We wanted to do a Vietnam show but at first they were pretty scared.

08-00:39:10 Meeker: When was this?

08-00:39:12 Bartholomew: This was when Shangraw was still there. When Nancy Tingley was the Southeast Asian curator. They went several times to Vietnam. In fact, they wrote up the catalog but somehow it never—but before they went they have agonized over the whole thing. Do we dare? Because you never know how the local Vietnamese will react to something coming from Vietnam. So it’s like the Tibetans reacting from something coming from Lhasa. But I think it is important to show all these different countries. I don’t know.

08-00:39:53 Meeker: Over the forty, fifty year period of time now, does the way in which you try to create understanding, has that changed drastically?

08-00:40:07 Bartholomew: Yes and no. Some shows are definitely like introducing new things. And some shows are more scholarly. Like reflecting what a curator is working on.

08-00:40:30 Meeker: I think it was in the Marjorie Bissinger interview that I think maybe you even wrote an introduction to. Was that right? She talks I think about some of the original inspiration for getting the Brundage collection in San Francisco was the 1939 World’s Fair over on Treasure Island and that there was a show of some Asian art there and the sense that San Francisco was the gateway to the Orient, as I’ve described it, yet people didn’t really have much knowledge of it. I guess kind of comparing the mid-sixties to today. Does it seem like people in the United States and California in particular have a much deeper understanding at their base of Asian art and culture or does it still need to be constantly introduced?

08-00:41:37 Bartholomew: You can just see from the shows, like the geisha show. Just the word geisha, people come by droves.

08-00:41:50 Meeker: So in other words there’s still this fascination with the mystery.

08-00:41:53 Bartholomew: Yeah. They still need to be really educated. There’s still a lot of misunderstandings and things.

08-00:42:05 Meeker: Did you get a sense of what some of the common misunderstandings were during your period at the museum?

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08-00:42:14 Bartholomew: God, I can’t think of any examples right now. They just have this misconception. They think that geisha is a wonderful thing to have. They’re very just intrigued by things like this. I’m not very good at explaining things. Sorry.

08-00:42:14 Meeker: That’s all right. Well, maybe you can try to answer me and this is sort of related to this. Do you have an overall sense about how a museum might achieve the right balance between sort of the scholarly side of things and the blockbuster kind of exhibitions that attract thousands or hundreds of thousands of people?

08-00:43:13 Bartholomew: We have to have both. And it’s possible. Use the big rooms for the blockbusters and then use the smaller rooms for the scholarly shows. Even before we moved we were told, “Don’t you dare do any scholarly shows. Nobody would come.” Which is very sad. But I think it’s still possible. It’s how you present it. The museum cannot survive without blockbusters. We need them. We need shows like Xi’an, the terra cotta soldiers. We need samurai shows. They are always popular. So if you want money you do those shows. But you have other rooms. Do interesting shows from our own collection. We have so much. It’s just whatever they do is so boring.

08-00:44:16 Meeker: Do you think that the Terra Cotta Warriors show was boring?

08-00:44:20 Bartholomew: No, no, no. No, I don’t mean those. I mean the little shows that they tried to do. No, the terra cotta show is what brings in money. No, in fact, this time they do a very good job because they have a new designer. And our old designer was very good. Everything is very beautiful. But nowadays you’ve got to be popular. You have to have all these large screens everywhere showing action. People love it. It was very good. I saw a lot of people watching. Americans are kind of like trained to watch screens. So you need to have lots of those introducing the shows in the museum. And I thought this time is very successful.

08-00:45:09 Meeker: It seems like in the last twenty years they’ve made a much bigger effort to engage with the Chinese communities or the Asian community in San Francisco or in the Bay area. Have you found that from a curatorial standpoint different audiences respond to different things, I guess? How then do you curate an exhibit that is appealing to such different audiences?

08-00:45:53 Bartholomew: We try to appeal to everybody in all the shows we do. And besides the artwork, you always think of all the activities that go on. So that may pull different people in. So we try to get everybody to come. But something we

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didn’t talk about, like support from the community. The only people we can work with are the Koreans. There is a Korean support group but we don’t have a Chinese one, we don’t have a Japanese one.

08-00:46:43 Meeker: Why do you suppose that is?

08-00:46:45 Bartholomew: Okay. I don’t know about Japan but for China, what do you do? Do you cater to the Taiwanese or do you cater to the local Chinese or do you cater to the Chinese from China? You already have three different groups of people. It’s impossible.

08-00:47:03 Meeker: Well, China is so vast.

08-00:47:05 Bartholomew: Yes.

08-00:47:06 Meeker: Population and geographically and culturally that maybe you do need three different contingent groups, right?

08-00:47:13 Bartholomew: You just can’t. You’re human. You can’t handle three different groups of people. Plus they don’t talk to each other. Language difficulties. And we tried to get people from Chinatown to come to the museum and I went out and talked to them. And some people say we can’t speak English, we just live here. There are people who lived in Chinatown, they never stepped foot out of Grant Avenue. So they don’t want to come. The only way to get them out of Chinatown is when you have the archeological show. Oh, my God, everybody came out from the woodworks to come to this show. Of course, there’s lots of Americans but then the local Chinese would come. Otherwise they never come. Like the Xi’an show will pull some of them out, come see it. And to get a support group, somehow the Koreans are very good. They raised money for the Korean department every year. But for the local Chinese, many of those are immigrants and they have to work. They don’t have the resources to give money to the museum. So it’s a different group of people. But I don’t know why. But somehow the Koreans are very successful.

08-00:48:30 Meeker: One thing I’ve always wondered, and that is the museum was established to kind of educate Americans about Asia, about its history, about its cultural and artistic achievements, about its humanity. And so therefore it kind of is not only a bridge but it’s kind of a window, as well, to Asia for Americans. But I’ve always wondered the degree to which it kind of also might work in the opposite way. That is that the museum could be a way for people in Asia to see what Americans think of Asia. Like how we conceptualize the different

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culture groups or what Americans prize of Asian cultural history. Have you found that to be true at all?

08-00:49:40 Bartholomew: I was thinking that as I watched people. If they’re Chinese they go look at the Chinese things and they just walk quickly through Japan and Korea and left. They are not interested in the other countries. I think Americans, the local Americans, are more interested in different cultures, at least the people in California. But when you say educate Americans. So the Chinese people, they are also Americans.

08-00:50:09 Meeker: Yeah, I know. It’s tricky.

08-00:50:12 Bartholomew: Yeah, it’s very tricky. They’re just not interested.

08-00:50:16 Meeker: So, for instance, let’s say there are visitors coming from Asia, maybe scholars or something. Have you ever had an experience where they look at, for instance, a certain categorization of art or the way in which art is displayed and said to you, “Wow, I’ve never really thought about it like that,” or, “Wow, you’re putting all of these things together that are totally different and you’re Orientalizing our experience.” Do you ever get any sense about that?

08-00:50:52 Bartholomew: No. They come and they just stand in front of whatever objects they like and start taking notes. They don’t look at the general pictures. All these are scholars and they have specific things they like to study. And they just go. Like bronzes, they just go to look at bronzes. They won’t look at paintings or anything else.

08-00:51:13 Meeker: Did they ever express surprise or gratitude or maybe frustration that there’s so much Asian antiquity in the United States?

08-00:51:27 Bartholomew: Gratitude, no. Frustration, yes, jealousy, yes. Why do you have those things? These belong to China. It’s all stolen by these damn foreigners.

08-00:51:36 Meeker: So you get that kind of perspective, huh?

08-00:51:37 Bartholomew: Yeah.

08-00:51:39 Meeker: How do you respond?

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08-00:51:40 Bartholomew: I said, “Hey, they would be broken during the Cultural Revolution. You should be grateful that we are taking good care of them.” That’s what I say to them.

08-00:51:47 Meeker: Well, there are Van Gogh’s in Japan.

08-00:51:50 Bartholomew: Yeah.

08-00:51:52 Meeker: Is there an understanding that there’s actually a lot of Western art also in Asia?

08-00:51:57 Bartholomew: No. They don’t think about that. In fact, before we left the old place, Chinese newspapers and TV stations, they sent a delegation. They came over to all the museums, checked out the Chinese objects. They took pictures of the rhinoceros. They didn’t care about the 338 Buddha but the rhinoceros and the stone sculptures from Yungang. Some of those. You know very well the statues are headless and handless. Some of the sculptures should be returned but I don’t know what’s going to happen. But they knew which museum has what.

08-00:52:38 Meeker: Were you ever brought into those kind of conversations about—

08-00:52:41 Bartholomew: I have to lead them around. I just don’t say anything.

08-00:52:46 Meeker: Interesting. Well, we’re about out of tape here. I wonder if you have any final thoughts or anything maybe that I didn’t ask you about that really should be discussed.

08-00:53:02 Bartholomew: No, I think we talked about most everything and I’m glad you are doing this project because later on, in later generations, the curators will be doing very different things from what we did when we were young, so it might be interesting for them.

08-00:53:19 Meeker: Any idea about how things might change?

08-00:53:22 Bartholomew: No idea. Can’t foresee the future. But I already seeing it. Everybody’s looking at the computer. They are not downstairs studying art in the basement. So that’s a bit frightening. And everybody’s being compartmentalized. They just study the things they like when there’s so many other things they should be looking at.

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08-00:53:47 Meeker: Well, what kind of advice then would you give to the next generation of curators?

08-00:53:52 Bartholomew: That they should really study the collection because there’s still so much we don’t know about the collection. But things change. In the old days we have time to like write on the accession cards, do our research on our own collection. Now we don’t. We are so busy doing other things. What I don’t know. I mean the museums change all the time. It will be interesting. I hope to live like twenty—no, I can’t. Maybe twenty more years to see what happens.

08-00:54:36 Meeker: Yeah. Are there any exhibits that you would like to see in that period of time?

08-00:54:42 Bartholomew: Oh, I’d like to see weapons shows. I don’t know. I like everything. The only thing I don’t like is I don’t like contemporary shows.

08-00:55:00 Meeker: You’d be happy to not see any more contemporary shows.

08-00:55:02 Bartholomew: Right. But that’s what people like so what can you do?

08-00:55:09 Meeker: Anything else you want to add?

08-00:55:10 Bartholomew: No.

08-00:55:12 Meeker: Okay.

[End of Interview]

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Interview #5 May 6, 2013 Audio File 9

NOTE: This interview session took place within the galleries of the Asian Art Museum. Asian Art Museum curator emeritus Terese Tse Bartholomew, along with longtime docent and Asian Art Commissioner Alice Lowe, discussed some of their favorite works in the museum’s permanent collection. Lowe’s contributions are included separately at the conclusion of her interview transcript.

01-00:05:40 Meeker: This is Martin Meeker talking to Terese Bartholomew and we are again standing here in front of the famous Ganesh statue at the top of the third floor of the new Asian Art Museum. And similar to what we asked Alice, I wanted to ask you how do you introduce yourself and the work of the museum to a tour? I know that you’re not part of the docent program but in the instances that you’ve given tours to visiting, perhaps, scholars here of the museum. Is there like a typical overview that you like to give?

01-00:06:22 Bartholomew: I don’t think I’ve ever given anything formal because usually—if it is a group, somebody else will introduce me. So I usually say welcome to the museum and start off right away.

01-00:06:34 Meeker: Okay. Well, let’s start off right away then. And is this one of the first pieces that you usually start off with?

01-00:06:42 Bartholomew: Yes.

01-00:06:41 Meeker: Okay. And why is that?

01-00:06:44 Bartholomew: That’s the one who got me my job. It was 1968 and I was a trainee at the de Young Museum but they switched me over to the Brundage Collection. That’s what the Asian was called in those days, and that was when Mr. Brundage was seriously buying objects. And what he would do was to send a whole bunch of photographs to Yvon d’Argencé, the director, and he would do research and tell him what he wanted. And since I was the first person who really knew something about Indian art working in the museum, so he gave me the photograph of Ganesh and said, “Write something about it.” So luckily we had a very good library so I went and did some research, gave him two pages, and Mr. Brundage purchased the piece. And maybe because of that, then at the end of summer, the job was offered to me. So I think it’s all Ganesh’s doing.

01-00:07:35 Meeker: Do you recall what you wrote about Ganesh at that time?

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01-00:07:38 Bartholomew: I talked a little of the history, how Ganesh came about. And also, Ganesh is the remover of obstacles. All people pray to him before they do anything. Students pray to him before an examination. In fact, when they wake up in the morning, the first thing they do is pray to Ganesh first to remove all the obstacles of the day. So Ganesh was very important. Then I talked about where it came from because, as you see, there are many Ganesh’s around me and from the rock you can tell which part of India it’s from. Now, this one, my senior curator, Clarence Shangraw, used to tease me by calling him Cupcake because of all the icing all over the piece. That’s because the stone is very soft. It’s a chloritic schist from South India and it’s very soft when you first quarry it, so you can do a lot of detail work. But then it hardens later on in the air. So you don’t see such fancy Ganesh’s anywhere else. And I like him because he has personality.

01-00:08:44 Meeker: Can you tell about the provenance of this? You said that you made a recommendation that Mr. Brundage purchase the piece?

01-00:08:53 Bartholomew: I would guess that it came from Hoysala, which is a large area, but you cannot pinpoint the temple. You don’t want to, anyway. [laughter] But it is from Halebid in the Hoysala area.

01-00:09:06 Meeker: And I notice here there’s a sign that says, “Donations to Ganesha may be placed in slot.” Is this statue particularly relevant as far as paying alms to?

01-00:09:20 Bartholomew: It is the most popular statue in the museum when I was working there and I would walk up to the gallery and you see dimes and pennies and quarters stuck all over him, as well as chocolate. So I would eat the donation. So finally we had to put a donation box in front of him because it was getting too much and we don’t want people harming the stone.

01-00:09:42 Meeker: Why would people leave donations of money and chocolate to him?

01-00:09:44 Bartholomew: Well, because in those days, in the label we did say that this is to remove all obstacles. No, that’s gone right now. And people have lots of problems so they pray to Ganesh. Also, it’s time of the sixties. A lot of hippies. So they know about Indian culture, so Ganesh is very popular.

01-00:10:05 Meeker: And can you tell me about the placement of this object here in this museum? It’s got both a pride of place but it’s also somewhat removed from the rest of the collection. Do you know how that decision was made?

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01-00:10:18 Bartholomew: By that time I was not the Indian curator. I switched, so I don’t know.

01-00:10:22 Meeker: You don’t know about the decision placing him there?

01-00:10:23 Bartholomew: Yeah. Well, Ganesh is the lord of beginnings, so it’s good to begin the tour with him.

01-00:10:33 Meeker: Okay. Is there anything else that we should know about this particular statue?

01-00:10:38 Bartholomew: That among all the Hoysala Ganesh in America, this is the most beautiful one in any museum collections. Yeah.

[Break: conversation moves to third floor gallery where the Indonesian daggers are located]

01-00:10:51 Bartholomew: This is another of my favorite objects in the museum and the reason why is that we had a lot of trouble getting it from de Young Museum. In the old days, when we were still with de Young in the Golden Gate Park, we had some kind of an agreement, is that everything Asian should come to us and everything non-Asian should go to de Young. So I believe Mr. Brundage gave them some Roman objects and some other things and then one day I walked up to de Young galleries and saw a beautiful display, a piece of Plexiglass with five of these daggers on it. And I said, “Wait a minute. How dare they? These are ours.” So then we began a very long negotiation because, of course, once it’s on display they didn’t want to give it to us. So we waited until the case was going to go off display, and then together with Diana Turner, the education curator, we were able to convince de Young Museum that they had better follow the agreement and give them to us.

The reason why I like it so much, because it’s a very vicious Indian weapon. The most vicious one I know. It’s called punch dagger. So if you look at miniature paintings from the Mughal period, in like seventeenth, eighteenth, nineteenth century, you’ll see a Mughal emperor or warrior have this dagger stuck right in his cummerbund. It’s very simply constructed. These two bars are for protecting your hand and the middle part is where you clutch it and you just go straight to the stomach entrance and there goes all their intestines. And one particular one I did not get. That one, when you punch it, it snaps open and there’s another dagger inside. But unfortunately it was given by M.H. de Young, so de Young Museum said they have to keep it. So I’m still hoping that one day they’ll give it back to us. So there’s this one, maybe two of these, and this also, some beautiful kris from Bali, which we can shoot as we walk over.

[shifting to another object]

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Together with the Indian daggers that we saw just now, were also these beautiful kris from Bali. It’s a serpentine type of sword or dagger. And many of those are made of meteorite, meteorite iron. I like the shape very much, and these were more ceremonial than being used for actual battles because they’re all studded with beautiful rubies. The Museum’s very lucky that we were given the huge collection of krises, so we were able to display them.

01-00:13:42 Meeker: Do you want to explain a little bit, talk about why they are positioned the way they are?

01-00:13:47 Bartholomew: I don’t know. I didn’t display them.

01-00:13:53 Meeker: But you remember how they cannot be shown pointed down unsheathed?

01-00:14:09 Bartholomew: Well, you notice that all the points are pointing up. They are not supposed to be pointing down because they’ll be hurting the people below. But this means they’ll be hurting the staff up there. I don’t know. I didn’t display this so I have no idea.

01-00:14:27 Meeker: So can you tell actually a little bit about the role of daggers in the cultural lives of—so you said these were from Bali? Is that correct?

01-00:14:40 Bartholomew: Yes. Every country had their own different weapons, and all Southeast Asia, they used this type of kris. And I think you can tell from the handle which part it came from. But I think the Bali ones are really interesting because they look like a serpent. So they’re mainly for punching, not for slashing.

01-00:15:06 Meeker: And can you tell us about the provenance of these pieces, as well?

01-00:15:11 Bartholomew: Well, these two came from de Young Museum. Gift of Templeton Crocker. I don’t know who he was. He must have lived a long time ago. But many of these are gifts of the Christensen Fund. Mr. Christensen, was it Allen Christensen, I think, he was a commissioner and he gave us many things, including textiles. In fact, not only us but museums all over the country.

01-00:15:40 Meeker: So Christensen, was he of an era before Avery Brundage?

01-00:15:45 Bartholomew: No, after.

[Break: move to the gallery for Himalayan art on the third floor of the museum]

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01-00:16:06 Meeker: Why don’t you first describe to me the color of the room, because you had mentioned that the color of paint in here is significant.

01-00:16:24 Bartholomew: The designer for this museum liked to use very somber colors and that would never do for the bright images we have in this gallery. That’s why I have to really fight with him to make sure he gave me the right one. I even had to bribe him with a colorful scarf from Bhutan to show him the colors I wanted. So luckily he chose this color.

01-00:16:48 Meeker: And what gallery are we in again?

01-00:16:50 Bartholomew: We’re in the Himalayan Gallery.

01-00:16:53 Meeker: And this was a gallery that you installed as you were the curator of Himalayan art when this new museum opened, correct?

01-00:17:00 Bartholomew: Correct.

01-00:17:01 Meeker: Can you describe the overall vision of this gallery, the selection of the pieces that you were most interested in?

01-00:17:09 Bartholomew: Well, it is mainly an area of contemplation. And if I had my way, I would have liked benches where people can sit down and really look at the images. But the gallery’s so tiny we cannot do anything like that. But I just want to give a quiet feeling, like as if you walked into a Tibetan temple.

01-00:17:33 Meeker: Now, let’s look at the piece that you had wanted to show.

01-00:17:39 Bartholomew: In Tibetan Buddhism, if you become enlightened, you need two things: wisdom and compassion. That is very important. That’s why you see many sculptures in this gallery in sexual embrace. That’s to represent the idea of male and female, wisdom and compassion. And I have always wanted to have these really important ritual objects to explain this idea of wisdom and compassion to the public because the thunderbolt (compassion) is what the monks would hold in the right hand and in the left hand they would hold a bell (wisdom). This is to remind them like one is wisdom, the other’s compassion, and together they can become enlightened. So that’s a very important idea and I thought when the docents come into this gallery they should talk about this first before they talk about the other statues in sexual embrace.

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And in the 1980s the curators were told to write out a wish list. At that time we had no money so I thought, “Wow, this is an exercise in futility but I’ll do it anyway.” But one person paid attention to me and it was Margaret Polak and she had newly moved from Denver to San Francisco, and she was on the acquisition committee. She literally studied the list of what I wanted and she quietly went out to the auction and bought me this pair. Now, this is not an ordinary pair for the monks to hold. This was for a high monk and it was a royal gift from the emperor of China, the Yong-le emperor of the fifteenth century. So it’s very important. See how beautiful it is, how large it is? I was so happy when she gave it to me that I couldn’t sleep for nights. But it’s so important for us to have it in this gallery to explain the concept.

Later on I want to concentrate on this, number one, this very tiny one. These tiny little things are believed by Tibetans to have dropped from the sky. They call them ‘sky iron.’ They are called thogchag. Thog means thunder and lightning. Chag is iron. There are many Tibetans who are herders and when they are out up in the Tibetan steppes, they looked on the ground and found these things that had been fallen from other objects but they had no idea. They thought that when there’s thunder and lightning in the sky, they should be able to find these things on the ground. So once they picked it up, they would wear it. That’s why they have such a beautiful shine on them, because they kept on fondling it as a protective amulet.

But in reality we can actually tell what some of these things are. For example, number one over there and number ten on this one, these are buckles that the Tibetan monks used to strap up their prayer books. The prayer books are this long, so you have two straps, and these are the clasps that hold the straps together, so they must have fallen off as they were walking on the highlands of Tibet. And the first statue of a Buddha with the head completely worn away, that is very important because that came from the Tang Dynasty, 618 to 906. That was when the Tibetan king married a Chinese princess, so the princess and her whole entourage came to Tibet and somebody must have carried this and dropped it on the ground.

01-00:21:20 Meeker: So you’re pointing to number one on the second panel?

01-00:21:22 Bartholomew: Yeah. It’s a seated Buddha on a pedestal, completely worn. So these are very important historically. And when I wanted to collect thogchas I had huge objections from the director because these objects are too small. If you go to the Metropolitan, they show beads and tiny ornaments everywhere and people love them, so I insisted. So, of course, if you’re not going to buy it for me, I’ll make other people give it to me. So I made all the local dealers each give me some. So if you read the label, all these are donations; not one single one was purchased by the museum.

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01-00:22:01 Meeker: Can you tell me how it was that you as a researcher were able to determine the origins of these pieces? How do you know one was a belt buckle or one was an amulet?

01-00:22:10 Bartholomew: Oh, because I have seen them before. For example, arrowheads. These are like 2,000 years old arrowheads, Han Dynasty, Chinese. I don’t know why they ended up in Tibet. I guess they were fighting. So some you can tell, some you can’t. Number fourteen and number eight, they’re seated lions and they have been fondled so much that the heads completely disappeared. So they must have been very old. Some we know, like this one. It’s a seal from the Yuan Dynasty.

01-00:22:46 Meeker: That’s number six?

01-00:22:49 Bartholomew: Yeah, that’s a horse and rider. And we made a rubbing. We made an impression of the seal. It has Chinese writing. It means forever happy.

01-00:23:00 Redman: Can you talk a little about the practice of making a seal and has the museum done that basically from the beginning or is that something that has been implemented as a practice? That people would like to see what the seal actually would look like on paper.

01-00:23:15 Bartholomew: I don’t believe we ever showed seals in the Chinese gallery. This one, it’s a Chinese seal and I thought people would want to know what is it, what is it like. That’s why I always make an impression, when you show something like this. And this type would have been used on sealing wax or a piece of clay sometimes. But most Chinese would use vermillion ink and you see it on the Chinese paintings a lot. We do have a very good collection of Chinese seals but I don’t know whether they’re on display or not.

01-00:23:51 Meeker: Is there anything else you’d like to add?

01-00:23:57 Bartholomew: Yes. This is a beautiful ring, nineteen, from the Dali Kingdom, and if you look at it carefully it has a snake on the bottom and a phurba. No, actually, it’s a thunderbolt, like the one we saw just now but a very simple one. And when you wear it, the snake will be on the outside and your fingers will be holding this, so it’s for meditation, for prayer, and also for protection. So that’s from the Dali Kingdom and we also have, in this museum, we have beautiful Buddhas from there. That’s in Southwestern China and dated to maybe a thousand years ago.

[Break: now, Bartholomew is in the China Gallery]

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01-00:52:51 Meeker: So, Terese, please tell us the meaning of these particular pieces.

01-00:52:54 Bartholomew: Yeah. These tiles are from the Tang Dynasty and they give us a very good example of Mr. Brundage’s good taste and his stubbornness. When the collection first started he would constantly have scholars come and study the collection and those comments were written down on our accession cards. And for these pieces, people would say, “Discard. Outright fake. Get rid of it.” But Mr. Brundage totally ignored all this wonderful advice from the top scholars of America. Then in the nineteen—I forgot what year was it, probably in the nineties, eighties and nineties, I was reading the excavation report from China. There are two magazines that we are supposed to read monthly. The Wenwu and the Kaogu. I don’t know which one mentioned it. But they talked about this temple that was recently discovered outside of Xi’an. It was completely covered with plaster and then when the archeologists started cleaning up, all these wonderful tiles appeared, exactly like this, and there were many missing ones. Apparently in the thirties many foreigners came and the local people started stealing and selling to the foreigners and then other locals got very mad and they just covered up the entire temple with plaster so nobody could steal anything. So nowadays they make replicas and completely restored the temple. So it is this Xiuding temple from the Tang Dynasty outside of Xi’an, and many of these tiles were scattered in museums all over the world. So we are glad to have them here. This particular one is great. It shows a foreigner. See the big nose. So it’s a dancing foreigner, and you see similar pieces in our Tang Dynasty gallery.

01-00:54:49 Meeker: Why do you suppose Brundage was compelled to keep these pieces when the weight of scholarly opinion said that they were fakes?

01-00:54:59 Bartholomew: He liked them. I think he liked things that are powerful. Like the Brundage rhinoceros was very powerful. We used to say that Mr. Brundage walked like a rhinoceros. Every one of these, they’re very powerful and beautifully made, so he believed in them.

01-00:55:19 Meeker: Do you suppose the scholars said that they were fakes because of the quality? They don’t look aged all that much. At least the one in the middle looks like it could have been produced very recently.

01-00:55:31 Bartholomew: See, our knowledge came from published material, so no one had ever seen such things before, so that’s why people did not believe in them. But then, of course, the minute we see the temple with all these tiles on it, then the feelings change completely.

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01-00:55:47 Meeker: Maybe you could share your thoughts about provenance and what happens when a circumstance like this is discovered, whereby the museum or Brundage obtained the materials and perhaps there’s some dispute about how they were obtained and why they were sold to begin with.

01-00:56:09 Bartholomew: Well, this kind of provenance thing is a modern, I would say a late twentieth century, early twenty-first century phenomenon. In the old days people don’t think about it when they buy objects. And Brundage collection, like any other collection, started around the early part of the twentieth century. There are many pieces with this kind of provenance but it wasn’t fashionable in those days to dig up the background.

01-00:56:41 Meeker: Have there ever been any requests to return materials along these lines? Do you know how the museum would respond to something like that?

01-00:56:51 Bartholomew: Before we left Golden Gate Park there was a whole group of cameramen, newspaper people, scholars from China coming to every important museum. And they came to our museum and photographed several of the large sculpture pieces and also the rhinoceros but we haven’t heard anything from them. So maybe one day China will demand to have these objects back. And this is not the only museum. Metropolitan’s even worse.

Audio File 10

[Begin in the China Gallery on the second floor of the museum; the cases detailing symbols and rebuses in Chinese art, also known as “The Gallery of Hidden Meanings”]

02-00:00:08 Meeker: Okay, Terese, we are here in one of the galleries that you curated and I’m wondering first if you can tell me the name of the gallery and then describe to me what your vision was in putting this gallery together.

02-00:00:24 Bartholomew: This is the Gallery of Hidden Meanings to explain esoteric meanings of Chinese art that usually people do not talk about. As you know, I was not the Chinese curator for many, many years. I was the Indian curator and then Indian and Southeast Asia, then Indian and the Himalayas. So finally, when we moved here I gave up India and exchanged for Chinese decorative art. Because my hobby was to collect these meanings, and these are things usually Chinese curators do not know about and they do not write about. And I thought they are so interesting that the public should be introduced to them. Emily Sano, the director—also Michael Knight—told me to have this small gallery to illustrate all these. So the theme is actually to represent the hidden wishes of the Chinese. Chinese wish for blessings in form of a good marriage and children, then they want rank and money, even nowadays, and then finally

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you want longevity. So this is how the gallery’s arranged. So blessings is in form of a bat. That’s not Halloween. Bat is pronounced fu in Chinese and fu is also blessings. So that’s a rebus. All these are rebuses. And here you see a whole sky full of bats. That means, “May you have blessings as vast as the sky.” That is the wish granting scepter or the wish granting wand. If you hold it in your hand, all your wishes will come true.

02-00:01:59 Meeker: What are the symbols on that particular piece?

02-00:02:05 Bartholomew: Fungus. This is the fungus of immortality. But the head of the wish granting wand is also shaped like a fungus, so it has double meaning of longevity and as you wish.

02-00:02:15 Meeker: And why does fungus represent longevity?

02-00:02:20 Bartholomew: The Chinese fungus, if you go to Chinatown and look at any of the herbal shops, you’ll see it retains its shape, so it’s believed to live for a long time. And all through the history of China, people would go up to the mountain to search for this fungus of immortality. And also the Chinese immortals are believed to live on the fungus.

02-00:02:43 Meeker: Okay. There are these panels there. Those number four.

02-00:02:52 Bartholomew: They have the longevity character surrounded by five bats. I think you can barely see them. And the five bats are symbols of longevity, wealth, health, love of virtue, and a peaceful death. So people love the five bats. And this came from the palace and everything from the palace loved to be exaggerated. So if you look at the background, those are swastikas. Swastikas in China have nothing to do with the Nazis. They stand for ‘ten thousand.’ They’re called wan and wan is a pun for ‘ten thousand.’ So that means all the five blessings are multiplied ten thousand folds. So now we come to blessings. We have to have children. If you do not have children, you wear something like this. This piece was originally classified as a netsuke and I rescued it. I said, “Wait a minute. This is Chinese. This is not Japanese. Give it back to us.” So now we have it here. And it’s a piece of Suzhou agate. It has orange stone inside and a brown covering outside and the Chinese carver cleverly made the inside into dates and the outside skin into two peanuts. Peanuts stand for many sons and the date is a pun for hurry up, early, like the early arrival of sons. So a man without any children would have used this to wear on his body.

02-00:04:19 Meeker: So the peanut has a particular symbolic value in Chinese culture.

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02-00:04:24 Bartholomew: Many seeds. Many sons.

02-00:04:27 Meeker: But do you know how it acquires this symbolism because it’s not native to China.

02-00:04:32 Bartholomew: No, but have you ever harvested peanuts?

02-00:04:36 Meeker: No.

02-00:04:36 Bartholomew: You pull it up and the long stem is completely hung with all these nuts. So when you have numerous seeds, it means numerous sons. It’s just like the pomegranate, same idea. One of our jobs is to go around looking at collections. And at that time we have the Drs. Shensons. They are patrons of the opera and the symphony, and I was told go visit their house and pick what I want. I said, “I want that.” This would completely suit my purpose because it has all these little boys. So if you want children you have scenes of boys in the house. And all these boys are holding auspicious things. For example, this one holds a brush and a piece of golden ingot. That means ‘must.’ It means you must pass your civil service examination. So the idea of passing examinations is two thousand years old, and Chinese parents are always pushing their kids to study.

02-00:05:38 Redman: [laughter] In the early twentieth century it was more common for museums to exchange collections. So outright give an object in exchange for something else. That faded over time to a more common practice of loaning objects temporarily for an exhibition. Now, I wonder if you can talk about acquisitions. You’ve talked about donations and then finding things that are going up for sale, dealers. Are there any other stories about methods for acquisitioning special objects or things like that that you had your eye on?

02-00:06:16 Bartholomew: Well, the Brundage gifts are gifts to the city. Nobody can sell them, unless— you have to go through a very difficult process. Like I will never de-accession any of my pieces because I feel that they are all important. And after Brundage died, of course we have no money, so we have to rely on people giving us money to buy objects. And one very kind person was Mrs. Walter Shorenstein. She was on the acquisition committee and when a piece came up and we didn’t have enough money, she would give us the money to buy it.

02-00:06:51 Redman: This is my last question on it. You might see a great piece that fits in something you want to do. You’ll alert an interested party and let them know that the museum is interested in acquiring this?

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02-00:07:06 Bartholomew: No. I have to tell my director. The chief curator and the director have to approve of it first. Then I go out and ask people for money. We have an acquisition committee. Let’s see what else. So this part is on longevity. You see this one? In other museums, people always place this plate sideways. They think that this is the horizon but in essence the ocean is the horizon. So the ocean has five red bats flying above it and this cliff coming out from the sea is a mountain and has a peach tree. Peaches are symbols of longevity. Now, when I was a child in Hong Kong, when we attended a birthday banquet my mother would remind us, “Okay, when they serve the shark’s fin soup, you pick up your Coca-Cola or whatever it is, and go to the birthday aunt or uncle and say: ‘May you have blessings as deep as the eastern ocean and may you live to be as old as the southern mountain.’” So we memorized it and said it and they laughed and smiled at us and told us that we were good kids. So finally when I came to the museum I took one look at this plate and said, “Oh, my God. This is what I’ve been saying all along, but now I see it graphically. So that’s what it is. This is the sea of blessings, the eastern sea, and this is the southern mountain with the peach tree growing from it. So a Chinese would look at this and they would realize what they’re looking at. But for Americans and for European curators, it’s very hard for them because they don’t have the background. You have to know Chinese in order to pick up all these symbols.

02-00:08:54 Meeker: But it’s not just a matter of knowing Cantonese or Mandarin, it’s a matter of knowing culture quite deeply.

02-00:09:01 Bartholomew: Yeah, the Chinese culture. Now, this one you see a deer, a wasp, a bird, and a monkey. So those four names, they are puns for the term, “May you receive high rank and high salary. This one’s a bit too esoteric. Most people would not pick that up unless you tell them. Tell them the auspicious phrase, they’d say, “Oh, yeah, that’s right.”

02-00:09:26 Meeker: How would it sound in Chinese?

02-00:09:28 Bartholomew: [Chinese]. So jue is like ‘bird.’ Lu is the ‘deer.’ Feng is the ‘wasp.’ Hou is the ‘monkey.’ But they also stand for other words. High rank and high salary. Now, this one you see in Chinese restaurants all the time: a peony and also the white magnolia and sometimes they have crab apple. Because all three flowers form the term, “May your noble house,” like, “May you always have plenty.” So that’s what you see everywhere in Chinese restaurants because the peony is the flower of wealth and rank.

02-00:10:12 Redman: Of the original Brundage collection, were there things that were misidentified or misattributed that you’ve had to change in terms of the files or add additional information, I’m sure?

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02-00:10:23 Bartholomew: Yes. Because all these objects came all at once and the original curators, you cannot expect them to know everything. So when you have more curators coming in, then, of course, you change things slightly. I changed the Japanese peach to a Chinese agate peach. But most people do not know these meanings. It wasn’t taught in school. It’s just something I picked up.

[Break: again in the second floor China Gallery, looking at the pottery case]

02-00:10:57 Meeker: Okay, Terese, we are in what gallery right now?

02-00:11:01 Bartholomew: What do you call this gallery? I don’t even know. Oh, it just says Chinese art from 960 to 1911.

02-00:11:09 Meeker: Okay. And we’re in front of a case with some pottery in it. Can you tell me about the pieces in this case and in particular the Yixing teapot.

02-00:11:22 Bartholomew: I think you have vessels and teacups. And both of these I just remember they were gifts from our docents. The brown one is from Wally Goodman and the small one from Jane Lurie. These are docents from the first batch of docents, Alice?

02-00:11:42 Lowe: I think so.

02-00:11:43 Bartholomew: Yes. Yixing ware is something I studied in my spare time. And for any tea connoisseur, you always drink from a Yixing teapot because they are believed to be able to retain the aroma and fragrance of the tea and taste of the tea. And the best teapots came from Yixing, which is a little town to the west of the big lake in Jiangsu Province, about two hours from Shanghai nowadays. And as you see, the teapot is very plain. Just a round one with a tall handle and with a little Taihu rock in the center. Because the Yixing pot is associated with scholars. Scholars would actually go there and tell the potters what to do, Like commissioning certain teapots. And Chinese love rocks. They like a little bit of nature to be brought into the studio and that’s why there’s a little Taihu rock, from Lake Tai. This is the type of rock that you see in the palace and in any rich gardens of China. You see this little rock. This one has a very nice patina on it due to years of being used and this probably is from the early twentieth century. Now, this little one is a modern teapot. That was done probably in the 1980s and the tradition of Yixing teapots is still being carried on. Nowadays they’re still being made. And, actually, the modern ones command very high prices.

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02-00:13:17 Meeker: Could you describe the particular shape of it, the spout, the handle? I know that they come in all varieties of shapes but this one seems to have a slightly different configuration, perhaps, than some others.

02-00:13:37 Bartholomew: Yes. This one has a squatter appearance. They are all made from cylinders and they kind of like beat it into this shape. Now, the spout is in the form of a tree trunk. You see the really narrow look to it. And Yixing pots, many of them like to have this tall handle, so as to make it easy to carry around. Also the poet Su Dongpo from the Song Dynasty, he once lived in Yixing and he supposedly carried a pot with a tall handle, so people make this in memory of him.

02-00:14:16 Meeker: Ah. This one actually seems somewhat larger compared to most that I’ve seen. Is this perhaps considered a four serving pot? Another one is a one serving pot? Are they made according to how many servings they are supposed to produce?

02-00:14:32 Bartholomew: Yes. This one will serve four and that one will be more personal. Actually, this can serve two. Just depending on the size of your cup. For some very strong tea, we just need a tiny little cup.

02-00:14:45 Meeker: So sometimes the pot is made for a specific kind of tea?

02-00:14:49 Bartholomew: Yes. The tiny ones are for what they call the iron bodhisattva tea. Very strong.

02-00:15:00 Meeker: And was it typical for the museum to collect this kind of pottery or is this something that has become more of an interest over the years?

02-00:15:09 Bartholomew: Mr. Brundage actually gave us a very nice collection to begin with. Then after I had my first show here, and there was a lot of interest, and Wally Goodman happened to have this one at home, so he gave it. And also Jane Lurie went to China and bought Yixing teapots. So she gave that to us.

Once we have the exhibition, we have a lot of interest. And then the bookshop also started selling teapots. Not just this museum but most of the important museums.

[Break: now in front of the collection of snuff bottles, also in the second floor China Gallery]

Well, the interesting thing about snuff bottles is that it’s the stepchildren of museums because a Chinese curator would simply ignore the snuff bottles. And the reason why I was given this, because the Chinese curators, several of

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them, they did not want anything to do with snuff bottles. So I get to play with them. And my interest is not in the history of snuff bottles but mainly in iconography because I can pick out all these hidden meanings in there and I just studied them. Until I met Margaret Polak. This was the lady who gave me the bell and thunderbolt. She was a snuff bottle collector and she was so enthusiastic that she got me interested in studying about the history of it. So snuff came in as part of tobacco. The priests, European priests, gave it to the Kangxi emperor in the late seventeenth, early eighteenth century. So at first it was an imperial thing. Then later on the emperor started having snuff bottles made and gave them to the high officials. There were people collecting snuff bottles during the Qing dynasty. And I think they are really fun because they are made of every material that you see in Chinese art, and the technique on them, like painting, carving, these are the things you see everywhere, but these are just in miniature form. And for people who cannot afford to collect major Chinese art, this is something you can collect, except nowadays they are so horribly expensive that people—I don’t know what is happening.

Now, this one is very interesting. The malachite one. No, lapis lazuli. I always get the two mixed up. Lapis lazuli with a little Tang Dynasty gilt lion sitting on top. This is the same gilt lion that you see on the Tang altar. On the altar pieces, there are always two lions. So that’s the Tang lion sitting on the snuff bottle. And I like geology and this is where you can study stones. This one is a pudding stone from somewhere outside of Beijing. And there’s all kinds of interesting material. This is coconut. This is bamboo root. Here is a beautiful piece of agate in the shape of a peach. Nice jade pebble. Oh, Yixing snuff bottle. So it’s all kinds of wonderful things.

And when the new museum first opened, we ran out of money so the snuff bottle case was horrible. It was just plain with no shelves. So when Margaret Polak saw it, she was horrified, and she was a woman of action. She got Rhoda Mesker to pay for the interior of the case so that we could display the bottles properly. But she also knew that we don’t have enough, so she personally gave us over ten snuff bottles and made all the local collectors cough up the collections. So it’s like not really double but added one third to the collection in here. So I’m forever grateful to her. She was my biggest donor.

02-00:19:04 Meeker: I was just wondering if you could describe the inspiration for the display in this case.

02-00:19:10 Bartholomew: Well, the inspiration was because it was so bad to begin with.

02-00:19:13 Meeker: [laughter] But isn’t it based on Chinese display cases?

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02-00:19:19 Bartholomew: Yes, it is. Chinese display cases have little sections which you see in the other room. And it’s nice to have Plexiglass.

02-00:19:31 Meeker: Is that a carrot that I see in number forty-seven?

02-00:19:35 Bartholomew: Forty-seven? Where? Oh. This one?

02-00:19:41 Meeker: Yeah.

02-00:19:42 Bartholomew: No, this is a chili. It’s a red chili.

02-00:19:45 Meeker: And what are these from? Are these mostly from twentieth century or—

02-00:19:49 Bartholomew: No. Some of those, eighteenth century. Let me see. This one. This is made from the imperial workshop and that’s eighteenth century. Some of those are modern. We have one inside-painted one. These are all made of crystal or glass and the painter holds a right angle brush, stick it inside and paint, so they are all inside-painted. And in cases like this, we break off the spoon. We don’t want any spoon scratching the snuff bottle. Usually by the time you are thirty you stop painting. Thirty or forty, because it really ruins your eyes.

02-00:20:37 Redman: You had mentioned that there’s quite a market for this and perhaps that the market has—the value of these has increased over time. Are there some objects, as a curator, that over the course of your career you’ve been fascinated to see the desirability of them on the market go up whereas other objects are sort of the same in terms of their value? You mentioned snuff bottles. Is that a key example or—

02-00:21:06 Bartholomew: Snuff bottle. Because in the twentieth century you have the snuff bottle organization. And these are people independently write their own catalogues because at that time the curators refused to write such catalogues. So they just hated us and they wrote their own. And also these are the people—they’re so rich that they can go all over the world. The snuff bottle meetings are held in different countries. And because of all these collectors, then the price jacked up. But one thing I’m very happy is Yixing ware. In the old days I can go to Chinatown and buy one for seven dollars. But because of the recent interest in China, the seven dollar one can easily sell for ten thousand. So that’s quite a jump.

02-00:21:53 Redman: That’s quite a jump. Okay, great, thank you.

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02-00:21:55 Bartholomew: Yeah.

[Break: now in the Chao Shao-an and Chinese Painting Since 1900 Gallery]

02-00:25:06 Bartholomew: When I was a child growing up in Hong Kong, Chao Shao-an was like a household sort of name that when you talk about Chinese paintings you always say that he is the best. So when his collection were offered to us, eighty paintings was offered to us in the early nineties, there was huge objection. Because if you look at this and look at the traditional Chinese landscape, this one’s too bright. And the American scholars were trained in the traditional school and they really—like the local scholars, they really objected to the museum accepting this. But luckily Rand Castile was the director then and he thought about, “Well, maybe this is a good way to get the people from Chinatown to come to the museum.” So he accepted the collection. And, frankly, he was a great artist and his use of colors have Japanese influence. The school, Lingnan means south of the mountain, so these were Cantonese artists, and they went to Japan to learn painting. They learned special techniques from the Japanese and they used more colors instead of the traditional very somber type of colors. And this school, the Lingnan school, likes to use a very coarse brush. Like all these branches coming down, the willow leaves, they were done by this brush. They have a very special technique. And it’s especially good at like drawing grasses. Chao Shao-an was a master of insects. This is a beautiful cicada and back there we have praying mantis. For example, the gladiolus. This is a flower you see in Hong Kong. Actually, my father was the one who introduced gladiolus to be grown in Hong Kong but it became a popular flower and Chao Shao-an started painting gladiolus. I can just see an old fashioned art historian take one look and says, “How horrible.”

02-00:27:08 Meeker: There’s too much color?

02-00:27:09 Bartholomew: There’s too much color. But that’s what they look like. So we’re very happy to have it and this is one gallery where we promised to always display his work. Actually, the sculpture over there was made by my cousin, who passed away. She was a student of Chao Shao-an.

02-00:27:30 Meeker: This sculpture? The portrait of the artist?

02-00:27:32 Bartholomew: The portrait of the artist. Yeah.

02-00:27:35 Meeker: Can you tell me a little bit about this painting behind us?

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02-00:27:41 Bartholomew: Again, he loved anything new and cattleya began to be very popular when he reached old age, so he started painting cattleyas. Not too many people grow this flower in Hong Kong.

02-00:27:58 Meeker: What does the text say?

02-00:28:00 Bartholomew: Unfortunately, he has a special way of writing that is impossible to read. And we were lucky because the paintings came with explanations written by one of his students so we were able to translate it. Do you want me to read it?

02-00:28:21 Meeker: Sure.

02-00:28:22 Bartholomew: “By nature pure and without the slightest dust, how can one not treasure it’s lofty and rare beauty. As a slight breeze brings forth its subtle fragrance, the spring scenery feels most appealing. Today I visited the orchid garden in Saikung” (that’s on the outskirts of Hong Kong). “The garden is filled with a profusion of the cattleya orchids. I could only attempt to capture the infinite forms and peer less beauty. I, then, compose this verse to accompany the picture.” In the “Wushen year [1968], Shao-an”.

02-00:29:03 Meeker: Very nice.

02-00:29:03 Bartholomew: So you don’t give like nineteen sixty-something. You always give the cyclical date, and this occurs every sixty years. So that’s a hurdle for any Chinese curators. They have to carry a chart in their pocketbook in order to work out all the dates.

[End of Interview]