Fifth Chinese Daughter by Jade Snow Wong

Here, Wong has carefully applied the enamel so that copper shines through red enamel towards the top edges of the bowl, allowing the bowl to glow. The double-enameling is technically difficult, as the maker must powder the enamel on both the interior and exterior of the bowl before firing in the kiln. The bowl recommended for acquisition is a bright red, double-enameled piece. Her work can be found in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum, the Detroit Institute of Fine Art, and the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco, among others. During her lifetime, Wong’s work was featured in exhibitions at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, deYoung Legion Museum, Cincinnati Museum of Art, and Museum of Modern Art, and she also had a solo show at the Art Institute of Chicago that traveled throughout the country and around the world. Wong’s enameled copper pieces launched her career as an artist. Wong’s artistry is enjoying a renaissance of interest in the current moment.

Additionally, her first memoir, Fifth Chinese Daughter, published in 1950, is a canonical, widely-taught work of East Asian American literature. She is most known for her brightly colored, enameled copper tableware. Jade Snow Wong (1922-2006) was an American ceramicist, enameler, and author who was based in San Francisco. Below is my acquisition justification for the purchase:

This was the first work by Wong, and the second by a named Asian American woman artist to enter the BMA’s Decorative Arts collection. This new edition includes the original illustrations by Kathryn Uhl and features an introduction by Leslie Bow, who critically examines the changing reception and enduring legacy of the book and offers insight into Wong's life as an artist and an ambassador of Chinese American culture.I acquired this bowl by Jade Snow Wong for the Baltimore Museum of Art’s collection. It was written at a time when few portraits of Asian American life were available, and no similar works were as popular and broadly appealing. The US State Department even sent its charismatic young author on a four-month speaking tour throughout Asia.Ĭited as an influence by prominent Chinese American writers such as Amy Tan and Maxine Hong Kingston, Fifth Chinese Daughter is a foundational work in Asian American literature. Originally published in 1950, Fifth Chinese Daughter was one of the most widely read works by an Asian American author in the twentieth century. Jade Snow Wong's autobiography portrays her coming-of-age in San Francisco's Chinatown, offering a rich depiction of her immigrant family and her strict upbringing, as well as her rebellion against family and societal expectations for a Chinese woman.

Fifth Chinese Daughter by Jade Snow Wong