Clarissa Graefin von Spee

Clarissa von Spee is a curator in the Asia department, where her main responsibilities include Chinese paintings, prints and the Stein collection of Chinese paintings, textiles and Central Asian antiquities.

Clarissa studied East Asian Art History, Sinology, and European Art History in Heidelberg, Paris and Taipei. After two years of research in Shanghai she received her Ph.D. from Heidelberg University. Before she joined the British Museum in 2008, she was Assistant Professor for East Asian Art History at Heidelberg University.

Her research interests include traditional and modern Chinese paintings, issues of connoisseurship, and material culture in twentieth-century China.

Contact

cvspee@thebritishmuseum.ac.uk
+44 (0)20 7323 8919

Current projects

• Lead curator in preparing an exhibition and catalogue on The Printed Image in China from the eighth to the twenty-first centuries

Recent publications

C. von Spee, Wu Hufan - A Twentieth Century Art Connoisseur in Shanghai. Berlin: Reimer Verlag 2008.

C. von Spee, “Der Chinesische Pavillon zu Dresden. Wiederentdeckung eines historischen Bauwerks,“ in Ostasiatische Zeitschrift, NS, Nr.14 (Herbst 2007) 32-36.

C. von Spee, “Zhang Daqian, Wu Hufan and the Story of Sleeping Gibbon”, in: “Turmoil, Representation and Trends. Modern Chinese Painting, 1796-1949 /世變形象流風。中國近代繪畫 1796-1949 (conference volume edited by Chang Foundation Taipei and Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts, May 25-27, 2007) 177-184.

C. von Spee, Krieg und Kunst in China - Wu Hufans Feier der Atombombenexplosion von 1965,“ in: Cord Arendes/Jörg Peltzer (Hg.), Krieg -Vergleichende Perspektiven aus Kunst, Musik und Geschichte, Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter 2007 (= Heidelberger Abhandlungen zur Mittleren und Neueren Geschichte) 203-216.

C. von Spee, “Ganz oben, weit vorn. Rekordpreise für Avantgarde aus China,“ in WELTKUNST-contemporary 3 (September 2006) 6-10.

C. von Spee with Regina Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Gulexuan Collection, Lünen 2003.