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Nightingale by Hung Liu
Photo Credit© Tim Griffith / ESTO
Nightingale
Photo Credit© Tim Griffith / ESTO

Nightingale

Artist
Year2002
Classification painting
Medium oil on canvas
Dimensions60 x 60 in. (152.4 x 152.4 cm)
Credits Commissioned through the Art in Architecture Program
Fine Arts Collection
U.S. General Services Administration
Location
  • Hung Liu used historical photographs as her source material for this painting, which also draws upon her memories of growing up in China.  The young girl in the painting wears a Mao-type jacket, and is depicted in a way that recalls the state-approved style that Liu first learned as a muralist.  The painting’s elaborate background of cranes and stylized curls resemble the patterns found in traditional Chinese woodblock prints, which Liu has rendered in her own mature style of loose brushstrokes and aqueous drips that run down the surface of the canvas.