Faculty Profile

Katharine P. Burnett
陶幽庭

Chair, Art History Program
Graduate Chair
Professor of Art History
Faculty Director, Global Tea Institute for the Study of Tea Culture and Science
Chinese Art and Culture

Ph.D., University of Michigan
M.A., University of Michigan
B.A., Wellesley College

 

 

Bio

Katharine Burnett research explores China’s historical art theory and criticism, art and politics, art collecting and display, and the international spread of visual and material culture relating to the global tea trade. 

 

Lectures

Arts of Asia: this lecture course introduces major forms and trends in the arts and material culture of Asia from the Neolithic to the contemporary emphasizing the visual manifestation of secular and religious ideas and ideals.

Chinese Art: this lecture course exams 3000 years of Chinese art and culture from Neolithic through Tang Dynasty through a study of ceremonial and secular objects manifesting folk beliefs and belief systems of ancestor worship, Buddhism, Daoism, and Confucianism. 

Chinese Painting: this lecture course consists of thematic and chronological examination of Chinese painting and culture from the Tang Dynasty through the early 20th century.

Early Modern Chinese Painting: this lecture course traces topics in Chinese art history from the 13th to the 19th centuries.

Art from China 1900 to the Present: this lecture course examines modern and contemporary Chinese art, exploring the historical context that shaped it, and the political situations that dictated many of its themes and forms.

 

 

Seminars

The History of Japanese Ceramics and Tea Culture

Museum and Meditation: Use and Re-use of Cultural Sites and Properties

Investigating the Canon: What is Chinese Painting? and Why?​

Sites and Sights: Travel Painting in 17th-Century China

Visual and Material Culture Relating to the Sino-Viet Trade in Tea and Tea Ware

Transmission and Transformation in 17th-Century Painting from China

Collectors and Collecting

Tea and Its Impact on Visual and Material Culture

Paradigms of Passion, Paradigms of Idiosyncrasy: Art and the State in the Late Ming

Comparative Decadence between the Jiajing and Wanli Eras

Modernism Comes to China

Great Cities of China

Art in the Turbulent Years: Chinese Art from 1850-Present

The Formation of Chinese Culture: Collections of Chinese Art in Early Twentieth-Century America, 2009.

China and the (Trans/Inter)national Art Exhibition, 18XX-2008, 2008.

 

 

Special Courses

Great Cities of China, Freshman Seminar

Global Tea Culture and Science, First Year Seminar (team taught), Lead Instructor

 

 

Publications

Books

原创的维度:十七世纪中国艺术理论与批评》, Chinese translation of Dimensions of Originality: Essays on Seventeenth-Century Chinese Art Theory and Criticism, Dr. Naibin Jiang, trans. Beijing Foreign Studies University, Academy of Comparative Civilization and Intercultural Communication and Da Xiang Publish House, forthcoming 2023.

Shaping Chinese Art History: Pang Yuanji and His Painting Collection, Amherst, NY: Cambria Press, 2020.

Dimensions of Originality: Essays on Seventeenth-Century Chinese Art Theory and Criticism, Chinese University Press, Hong Kong, 2013.

Edited Volume

Guest Editor, Special Issue: “Decadence (or Not) in the Ming Dynasty,” Ming Studies 71 (May 2015)

Articles and chapters

“Tea Research, Teaching, and Outreach through the Global Tea Initiative at UC Davis,” in Syncretism of the Tea and the World: Chinese Tea Culture Forum on Heritage Inheritance, Dissemination, and High-Quality Industrial Development, held Nov. 25–Nov. 27, 2022, Official Institute of Guidance: Zhejiang Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism. Host Institutes: People’s Government of Yuhang District, Hangzhou, and Jingshan Tea Development Leadership Team, Yuhang District, Hangzhou. Organizers: Bureau of Culture, Radio, Television, Tourism and Sports, Yuhang District, Hangzhou; and People’s Government of Jingshan Town, Yuhang District, Hangzhou; and The Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage Studies (CICHS) of Zhejiang University. Supporters: World Tea Culture Academic Institute, UC Davis Global Tea Initiative for the Study of Tea Culture and Science, and China International Tea Culture Research Association, Hangzhou, forthcoming. 

“Weirder than Weird: ‘Weird-Figure’ Paintings of Seventeenth-Century China,” Artibus Asiae, forthcoming.

“Disseminating Chinese Culture in America through the Teaching of Chinese Art History,” China–US Journal of Humanities, Issue 8 (November, 2023), forthcoming. 

“Contemporaneity in Seventeenth-Century Chinese Painting, Theory, and Criticism,” Ming Studies, Volume 2023, Issue 88, pp. 3-33. 

“论十七世纪绘画理论和批评中的原创性 (Originality in Seventeenth-Century Painting Theory and Criticism),”  Chinese book chapter translation by Li Zhaoyan 李兆䶮 of Dimensions of Originality: Essays on Seventeenth-Century Chinese Art Theory and Criticism, in《中国艺术学》辑刊,创刊号,陈池瑜主编,清华大学美术学院中国艺术学理论研究所编,山东教育出版社,2021年出版,101–118页。(Chinese Art Studies series, inaugural issue, Chen Chiyu, ed., Institute of Chinese Art Theory, Academy of Fine Arts, Tsinghua University, Shandong Education Press, 2021, pp. 101–118.

“Pang Yuanji, Traditionalist/Modernist,” in Special Issue on Collecting, Collections, and Collectors in MING QING YANJIU, Università degli Studi di Napoli “L’Orientale,” Dept. of Asian, African and Mediterranean Studies. Published by BRILL, vol. 24 no. 2 (2020), pp. 181–208.

Dong Qichang,” co-author (section on Dong’s theory) with Celia Carrington Riely, Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online. Oxford University Press. Web. 2019. 

“Wu Bin.” Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online. Oxford University Press. Web. 2019. 

“What do you know? and how do you know it? Some thoughts on seventeenth-century Chinese painting,” in English and Chinese, Art – Science – Thoughts: A New Perspective on the Study of Landscape Painting and Calligraphy Symposium Proceedings, Hangzhou: Chinese Art Academy, 2018, pp. 15–46.

“The Global Tea Initiative at UC Davis,” in Kunbing Xiao, Guest Editor, “China Connections: Chinese Tea and Asian Societies,” IIAS Newsletter (International Institute for Asian Studies), Center for Global Asian, ed., Leiden University, No. 80, Summer 2018, p. 23.

“A New Look at a New Look: Painting and Theory of Seventeenth-Century China,” in Stephen Little, ed., 17th Century Chinese Paintings from the Tsao Family Collection, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2016, pp. 130–167.

“Decadence (or Not) in the Ming Dynasty: Introduction,” for Special Issue, “Decadence (or Not) in the Ming Dynasty,” Ming Studies, 71, (May 2015), pp. 3–4.

“Decadence Disrupted: Arguing Against a Decadence Model in Late Ming Painting History,” for Special Issue, “Decadence (or Not) in the Ming Dynasty,” Ming Studies, 71, (May 2015), pp. 41–57.

“Of Icons and Elvises: ‘Tibetan Spirit’ in Tsherin Sherpa’s New Art,” feature essay in Tsherin Sherpa: Tibetan Spirit, Rossi & Rossi Gallery, London, October 2012, pp. 4–15.

“Tibetan Buddhist Art in a Globalized World of Illusion: The Contemporary Art of Ang Tsherin Sherpa,” “西藏藝術在跨國化清淨的世界: 安才仁的當代畫,”in Elizabeth Childs-Johnson and Ying-Ying Lai, Guest Eds., Special Issue: “Art and Politics in Today’s China and Taiwan,” Modern Chinese Studies,[當代中國研究], vol. 18, no. 2, 2011, pp. 1–28.

“Mixing Water and Oil: Understanding Shimo in the Contemporary Global Art Market,” in Bin Feng and Shen Kuiyi, eds., Selected Essays from the International Symposium in Conjunction with Reboot, the Third Chengdu Biennale: the Third Chengdu Biennale, 重新启动: 第三届成都双年展 国际学术研讨会论文集 暨第一,二届成都双年展论文选 (Chong xin qi dong : di san jie Chengdu shuang nian zhan guo ji xue shu yan tao hui lun wen ji ji di yi er jie Chengdu shuang nian zhan lun wen xuan), Shijiazhuang Shi: Hebei mei shu chu ban she, 2007, pp. 74–79.

“Mixing Water and Oil: Understanding Shimo in the Contemporary Global Art Market,” Kuiyi Shen and Feng Bin, eds., Reboot: The Third Chengdu Biennial, Proceedings from the International Symposium, Chengdu, China, 2007, pp. 74–79.

“Mixing Water and Oil: Understanding Shimo in the Contemporary Global Art Market,” (Chinese version and English reprint) in Shimo, The Colors from My Heart: The Art of Shimo, 石墨,赋随彩心:石墨作品集, Shanghai People’s Fine Arts Publishing House, 2011, pp. 24–34.

“Mixing Water and Oil: Understanding Shimo in the Contemporary Global Art Market,” (Chinese version and English reprint) in Shimo, Heaven: The Collection of Shi Mo’s Contemporary Painting. Shenzhen, China: Author Gallery, 2008, pp. 5–11.

“Lin Fengmian’s Legacy during the Cultural Revolution: The Case of Two Rebellious Watercolors,” Proceedings from the International Lin Fengmian 110th Anniversary Symposium, China Academy of Art, Hangzhou, China, 2010, pp. 115–127.

“A Proclamation of Originality: Wu Bin’s On the Way to Shanyin Handscroll,” Oriental Art, Vol. 51, No 1 (Spring, 2010), pp. 2–11.

“An Originalist’s Manifesto: Wu Bin’s inscription on On the Way to Shanyin,” Oriental Art, Vol. 51, No 2 (Summer, 2010), pp. 2–7.

“Inventing a New ‘Old Tradition’: Chinese Art at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition,” 《美術史與觀念史》 (Meishu shi yu guannian shi)/History of Art and History of Ideas, Nanjing: Nanjing Shifan University, April 2010, vol. ix, pp. 17–57.

“Late Qing-Early Republican Period Taste and the Case of Pang Yuanji,” The Elegant Gathering: The Yeh Family Collection symposium website, http://webcast.berkeley.edu/events/details.php?webcastid=15762, Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, and University of California, Berkeley, 2006.

“Through Masters’ Eyes: Copying and Originality in Contemporary Chinese Landscape Painting,” Shanshui in Twentieth Century China, Shanghai: Shanghai Calligraphy and Painting Publishing House, 2006, pp. 317–334.

“Travel and Transformation: Wu Bin’s Enjoying Scenery along the Min River,” Oriental Art, vol. L, no. 4, (Winter 2006), pp. 2–15.

“晚明中國畫論中的獨創性話語,”(Wanming Zhongguo hualunzhongde duchuangxing huayu; a synthesis of “A Discourse of Originality in Late Ming Chinese Painting Criticism”), 《清華美術》 (Tsinghua Arts), Beijing: Tsinghua University Press, juan 2, 2006, pp. 62–68.

“Words on Word-Images: An Aspect of Dong Qichang’s Calligraphy Criticism,” Word & Image, vol. 19, no. 4, (October–December, 2003), 327–335.

“Taking Arts of Asia Online,” Education About Asia, vol. 8, no. 3, (Winter 2003), 26–29.

“Taking Arts of Asia Online,” republished in book format in: Ainslee Embree, Brian Platt, Helen Finken, and Robert L. Moore, “To Live”: An Interview with the Author Yu Hua, Book Review and Film Review,” Education About Asia, vol. 8, no. 3, 2003.

“A Discourse of Originality in Late Ming Chinese Painting Criticism,” Art History, vol. 23. no. 4 (November 2000), 522–558.

Exhibitions Curated at UC Davis

Supervising curator, Old Traditions, New Trends: Tea and Wine in Japanese Art and Design, UC Davis Conference Center, January 16-17, 2020, UC Davis Conference Center, January 16-17, 2020.

Tea-related Japanese Ceramics in the Global Tea Initiative, donated by and loaned from the Gerhard Simmel Family and An Anonymous Donor, UC Davis Conference Center, February 22-23, 2018.

Faculty adviser to undergraduate student curators Roxanne Faure and Ashley Cook, and Librarian Axel Borg, consultant, for The Art of Tea, featuring texts from Special Collections, Shields Library, and calligraphy by Wingchi Ip. UC Davis Shields Library, November 21, 2013-March 2014.

The Art of Wingchi Ip, Tea Master, Nelson Gallery, University of California, Davis, November 21-December 15, 2013.

Calligraphy of Lampo Leong, Nelson Gallery, University of California, Davis. October 8-December 12, 2010.

Visualizing Revolution: Propaganda Posters from the People’s Republic of China, 1949-1989, Nelson Gallery, University of California, Davis, April 3-May 18, 2008, co-curated with Yang Peiming, Owner/Director, Shanghai Propaganda Poster Art Centre, China.

Book and Exhibition Reviews

David Clarke, China – Art – Modernity: A Critical Introduction to Chinese Visual Expression from the Beginning of the Twentieth Century to the Present Day, University of Hawaii Press, 2020, in China Review International: An Interdisciplinary Journal on Greater China, 25.2, pp. 113–115.

Michael Sullivan, The Night Entertainments of Han Xizai: A Scroll by Gu Hongzhong, Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008, in China Review International: An Interdisciplinary Journal on Greater China, vol. 10, no. 1, Spring 2010, pp. 245-247.

Montien Boonma: Temple of the Mind, exhibition organized by the Asia Society, New York. Review of installation at the Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, February 25–May 23, 2004, for CAA.Reviews, November 4, 2004.

Stephen Little, ed., Taoism and the Arts of China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), in CAA.Reviews, July, 2002, 3 pp.

Michael Sullivan, Art and Artists of Twentieth-Century China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), in Modern Chinese Literature and Culture, vol. 11, no. 2, Fall 1999, pp. 186-192.

The Jade Studio: Masterpieces of Ming and Qing Painting and Calligraphy from the Wong Nan-p’ing Collection (New Haven: Yale University Art Gallery, 1994), in Newsletter, East Asian Art and Archaeology, University of Michigan, September 1995, pp. 28-31.

Interviews

Print

Quoted (p. 149) in Yin Hwong 黃韻, “Ying lun bo fang Ellen Johnston Laing: teli duxing de yishu shi nu xianzhi 英倫專訪Ellen Johnston Laing: 特立獨行的藝術女先知 (Interview on Ellen Johnston Laing: Maverick Woman Art History Prophet,” Dian cang 典藏 (Art & Collection), October 2010, No. 217, pp. 144-153.

Radio

Live interview with Dr. Andy Jones, Dr. Andy’s Poetry and Technology Hour, KDVS, January 18, 2023.

Live interview, “Insight with Vicki Gonzalez,” Capital Public Radio, Sacramento, January 17, 2023. 

Live interview with Dr. Naomi Janowitz, KDVS, February 4, 2020.

Television

“Zhang Daqian and the hot auction market for Chinese art,” Live interview on THE POINT, CGTN/China Global TV Network (formerly CCTV-NEWS), June 13, 2017.
Complete session on YouTube

Print media with live interviews

Interview with Emily Kelly, for course in Media Studies, undergrad, Syracuse University, March 19, 2020.

Live interview with Dr. Andy Jones, Dr. Andy’s Poetry and Technology Hour, KDVS, January 15, 2020.

Interview with Daryl Armstrong, Flamingo Group, August 1, 2019, marketing interview.

Interview with Shawn R. Jackson, UC Davis Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, June 26, 2019.

Interview with Kora Lovdahl, East Lyn High School, April 8, 2019

Interview with Gail Gastelu, Owner/Publisher, The Tea House Times, January 24, 2019.

Interviews with Dan Bolton and coverage in World Tea News, Tea Biz, STiR and Tea Journey, January 24, 2019.

Live interview with Dr. Andy Jones, Dr. Andy’s Poetry and Technology Hour, KDVS, https://archives.kdvs.org/archives/2019-01-23_5318_320kbps.mp3, January 23, 2019.

Michelle Wong, “Calling All Tea Lovers: An interest in teapots grew into the Global Tea Initiative for the Study of Tea Culture and Science,” The Aggie, February 22, 2019, https://theaggie.org/2019/02/22/calling-all-tea-lovers/ 

“Research and the Global Tea Initiative at UC Davis,” Live interview, Vietnam TV, Dec. 12, 2016.

 

 

Articles on or Relating to GTI (Recent)

As author: “The Global Tea Initiative at UC Davis,” in Kunbing Xiao, Guest Editor, “China Connections: Chinese Tea and Asian Societies,” IIAS Newsletter (International Institute for Asian Studies), Center for Global Asian, ed., Leiden University, No. 80, Summer 2018, p. 23.

UC Davis News, “UC Davis will host ‘Future of Tea’ symposium,”
https://www.davisenterprise.com/local-news/uc-davis-will-host-future-of-tea-symposium/, February 2018.

http://worldteanews.com/editors-choice/uc-davis-4th-annual-gti-colloquium-covers-body-mind-and-spirit 

http://worldteanews.com/editors-choice/colloquium-addresses-issues-surrounding-tea-and-health?NL=WTM-001&Issue=WTM-001_20190129_WTM-001_333&sfvc4enews=42&cl=article_1_1

https://lettersandscience.ucdavis.edu/blog/growing-california-tea-industry

https://theaggie.org/2019/02/22/calling-all-tea-lovers/

https://www.library.ucdavis.edu/guide/chachat/

https://www.theteahousetimes.com/tools/ca/tea?VIEW+20190124+BtvXi

https://lettersandscience.ucdavis.edu/blog/growing-california-tea-industry

https://www.freshcup.com/uc-davis-global-tea-initiative-wants-to-bust-myths-about-tea-and-health/

https://californiaagtoday.com/tag/global-tea-initiative/

https://www.yourwebempire.com/tools/bg/tea/lDnUc3zR/EVENT–amp–NEWS–Global-Tea-Initiative-4th-Annual-Colloquium-on-Body–Mind–Spirit–Issues-Surrounding-Tea-and-Health-set-for-24-Jan-2019

https://www.sacbee.com/latest-news/article224861655.html

https://www.teaandcoffee.net/blog/21841/from-initiative-to-institute/

https://theaggie.org/2019/02/22/asucd-election-results-econ-now-stem-major-nba-all-star-game-recap-your-weekly-briefing/

https://stir-tea-coffee.com/tea-report/uc-davis-tea-initiative/

https://californiaagtoday.com/global-tea-initiative-uc-davis/

http://eng.u-shizuoka-ken.ac.jp/news-events/20190107/

https://stir-tea-coffee.com/tea-report/tocklai-partners-with-uc-davis/

http://blog.tealet.com/post/182221158424/today-we-start-our-journey-to-uc-davis-to-engage

https://theaggie.org/2016/05/18/a-global-tea-party/

Narsai David, “Much To Learn At Xiamen, China’s International Tea Forum,” https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2014/10/31/much-to-learn-at-xiamen-chinas-international-tea-forum/

 

 

Awards and Distinctions

2021 Monograph, Shaping Chinese Art History: Pang Yuanji and His Painting Collection, listed among Book Authority’s 16 Best New Art History Books To Read In 2021

2020-2021 Recipient, Chancellor’s Award for International Engagement, Global Affairs, UC Davis

2020-2021 Recipient, O-Cha Pioneer Award, World Green Tea Association, Shizuoka Prefectural Government, Japan

2019 Nomination: Best Tea Educator – Individual, World Tea Expo, Las Vegas

2017–2018 Recipient, Best Tea Health Advocate, 2018, World Tea Expo, Las Vegas

2016–2017 38th Annual George Wittenborn Memorial Book Award, Art Libraries Society of North America (ARLIS/NA) for 17th–Century Chinese Paintings from the Tsao Family Collection, edited by Stephen Little (2016), as contributing author. 

2013 Nomination: International Convention of Asia Scholars (ICAS) Book Prize for Dimensions of Originality

 

 

External Links

Global Tea Initiative for the Study of Tea Culture and Science

Japanese, Korean, and Chinese Responses to Japanese Expansionism in the Early 20th Century, East Asian Studies Program Colloquium, UC Davis, April 29, 2016

(530) 752-0285
Room 160, Everson Hall

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