Michael Hatch
Assistant Professor
Art History
2015-present
Education
PhD, Princeton University
MA, Princeton University
BA, Middlebury College
Prof. Michael J. Hatch teaches the history of East Asian art. He specializes in research on the history of Chinese painting from the 18th century to the 21st century, with interests in: the senses, theories of painting, concepts of modernity, the historiography of painting, contemporary Chinese art, and inter-material relationships between painting and other visual cultures.
His current book project, The Tactful Literatus: Touch and Materiality in Chinese Art, 1790-1840, asserts that the early nineteenth-century obsession with epigraphy led to a form of tactile thinking that impacted all of elite visual and material culture. It is the first monograph on early nineteenth-century Chinese art and the first sensory history of Chinese painting. Prof. Hatch is also pursuing a second research topic on ideas of linearity and brushwork in early modern and modern Chinese painting.
Prof. Hatch has background experience in museums, auction houses, and galleries. In 2012 he curated a show titled “Qian Du (1764–1844) and Style in Qing Dynasty Landscape Painting” at the Princeton University Art Museum. He has written arts criticism for The Brooklyn Rail, Artforum International, Artforum.com, and Yishu: Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art. From 2006 to 2008 he lived in Beijing, where he was a client relations officer at China’s preeminent auction house, China Guardian, and before that he worked in New York at Kaikodo Gallery.
Publications
The Tactful Literatus: Touch and Materiality in Chinese Art, 1790-1840. (book manuscript, in progress)
(forthcoming) “Emulation and Fabrication in Chinese Painting Culture,” in Sharon Hecker and Peter J. Karol eds., Posthumous Art, Law and the Art Market (New York: Routledge), 2022.
(forthcoming) “What Can Ad Reinhardt Teach Us about Asian Art,” in Michelle Lim and Kyunghee Pyun, eds., American Art in Asia: Artistic Praxis and Theoretical Divergence (New York: Routledge), 2021.
“Outline, Brushwork, and the Epigraphic Aesthetic in Huang Yi’s Engraved Texts of the Lesser Penglai Pavilion (1800),” Archives of Asian Art 70:1 (April, 2020), 23-49.
“Epigraphic and Art historical Responses to Presenting the Tripod, by Wang Xuehao (1803),” Metropolitan Museum Journal 54 (2019), 87-105.
钱杜, 张崟与十九世纪初期对吴派画家的兴趣 (“Qian Du, Zhang Yin, and the Early Nineteenth-Century Interest in Wu School Painters”) in 古典的復興 (上海：上海古籍出版社), 2018, 22-26.
“展评: 郝量－肖像与奇迹” “Exhibition Reviews: Hao Liang- Portraits and Wonders.” 艺术世界 Art World 331 (Jul., 2018), 104-105.
“Xu Lei and Chinese Dreams,” in Xu Lei: New Works (New York: Marlborough Gallery), 2016, 23-29.
“Texture and the Chinese Landscape— Photograph-Paintings by Michael Cherney and Arnold Chang,” in From Two Arises Three: Creating a Third Space, Collaborative Works of Arnold Chang and Michael Cherney, (New York: Early Spring Press), 2014, 14-21.
“Learning about Asian Art from Ad Reinhardt,” The Brooklyn Rail, Ad Reinhardt Centennial, 1913–2013 (Dec. 2013–Jan. 2014).
“Fresh Ink: Ten Takes on Chinese Tradition, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston,” LEAP: The Bilingual Art Magazine of Contemporary China 7 (January, 2011).
“The Third Mind: American Artists Contemplate Asia: 1860–1989, and Outside In: Chinese × American × Contemporary Art,” Yishu: Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art 8.4 (July/August 2009).
“Reviews, Beijing—Zhao Liang: Three Shadows Photography Art Center,” Artforum International 47.1 (September 2008).
“Reboot—The Third Chengdu Biennale: A Review,” Yishu: Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art 7.1 (January/February 2008).