The Long Wharf: Chinese Junks (The Three Graces) (From an Archival Photograph, Circa 1885)

Hung Liu grew up under the Maoist regime in China, where she was trained in socialist realism painting. She immigrated to California in 1984 to study art at the University of California, San Diego. Her paintings are often based on archival photographs, which she “both preserves and destroys” through signature washes and drips that overlay her compositions. Her paintings recreate Gold Rush-period photographs of Chinese junks, sailing vessels with fully battened sails that played an important role in intercontinental trade during the nineteenth century. The works’ title, The Long Wharf, references a San Francisco wharf built in 1848 in what is now the city’s financial district.