Jan 4, 2023
modern_art_news
A £15m bequest from the collector who brought contemporary Chinese art home to Britain
Michael Sullivan left one of the world’s greatest archives of Oriental art to an Oxford museum. Through a quirk of fate, Michael Sullivan found himself transporting medical supplies for the International Red Cross in China in 1940. The experience would change his life. He returned to Britain married, with a passion for the country’s art that would see him devote his life to the subject and become a world authority on it.
Yesterday, it emerged that the academic bequeathed his private collection of 450 works to the Ashmolean Museum, creating “one of the greatest collections of modern and contemporary Chinese art in the world”.
Michael Sullivan left one of the world’s greatest archives of Oriental art to an Oxford museum. Through a quirk of fate, Michael Sullivan found himself transporting medical supplies for the International Red Cross in China in 1940. The experience would change his life. He returned to Britain married, with a passion for the country’s art that would see him devote his life to the subject and become a world authority on it.
Yesterday, it emerged that the academic bequeathed his private collection of 450 works to the Ashmolean Museum, creating “one of the greatest collections of modern and contemporary Chinese art in the world”.
