The Facts
On November 3, 2026, the Cleveland Museum of Art announced the acquisition of 734 photographs of China dating from the 1850s through the early 1920s from dealer Stephan Loewentheil. The group includes approximately 400 works by 16 Chinese photographers and more than 300 by British and European practitioners, with a small number by American and Japanese photographers, selected from roughly 8,000 images Loewentheil assembled over four decades. It includes more than 150 works by Lai Fong and images by Felice Beato, John Thomson, Thomas Child, William Saunders, and Georges Morache. Curators Barbara Tannenbaum and Clarissa von Spee made the selection, and the first exhibition drawn from the acquisition is planned for winter 2028.
The Signal
The acquisition gives a major American encyclopedic museum one of the most substantial holdings of early Chinese photography, notably including Chinese photographers' own perspectives rather than foreign views alone. By placing the works beside the CMA's Chinese painting and sculpture, it treats photography as central to the museum's narrative, and the planned digitization signals rising institutional attention to a field that remains comparatively under-collected.
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- Artists: Lai Fong, A Chan, Tung Hing, Liang Shitai, Felice Beato, John Thomson, Thomas Child, William Saunders, Georges Morache
- People: Stephan Loewentheil, William M. Griswold, Barbara Tannenbaum, Clarissa von Spee
- Museums: Cleveland Museum of Art
- Locations: Cleveland
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