CHINESE ART APPRAISER
Wei Yang, Ph.D. in Chinese Art & Tibetan Art, is an Accredited Senior Appraiser (ASA) in Asian art & Appraiser Review and Management (ARM) with a focus on Chinese art. Dr. Yang earned a B.A. in art history and M.A. in Asian Art from Smith College (Northampton, MA), and a Ph.D. in Chinese art history from Northwestern University (Evanston, ILL), and a certificate of Fine Art and Decorative Arts from Pratt Institute (New York). She received the graduate training on the study and research of Japanese and Korean fine arts, literati painting and Buddhist art. Her doctoral training focused on the connoisseurship, art critism and evaluation of classical Chinese painting and calligraphy. Her research interest covers the appreciation and evaluation of Chinese ceramics, jade and decorative arts. Dr. Yang is a lifelong Chinese art educator and writer, having served as Chinese Art Appraiser, Review Appraiser and Expert Witness for litigation. She is lifelong educator and writer (Books by Wei Yang).
Dr. Yang brings integrity, professional training, competence in multiple fields, and impartiality to her work. Dr. Yang has served as independent Chinese Art Appraiser, Review Appraiser and Expert Witness for litigation.
TRAINED CHINESE ART HISTORIAN
-Ph.D. in Chinese Art & Tibetan Art
Wei Yang received a B.A. in art history in 1997 and a M.A. in Asian Art in 1998 from Smith College (Northampton, MA) and a Ph.D. in Chinese art and Tibetan Art in 2005 from Northwestern University (Evanston, IL). Dr. Yang’s doctoral training focused on Chinese art, with a concentration on classical Chinese painting and calligraphy of the 10th to 14th centuries. She has conducted extensive field work across most of Asia, providing her invaluable hands-on research experience with Asian art. She extended her range of expertise from art history to Chinese art appraisal by conducting further research on Chinese art techniques and connoisseurship, the art market and art economics. Dr. Yang possesses the language skills fundamental to the professional understanding of Asian art. She reads classical and modern Chinese, Japanese and some Tibetan, and works regularly with the Chinese scripts (standard, clerical, semi-cursive, cursive and carving) used most frequently in classical Chinese painting and calligraphy. Before becoming a professional art appraiser, Dr. Yang served for 15 years in the education division of the Dunhuang Academy based at the Mogao Caves (Gansu, China), the largest repository of Buddhist art in the world, and worked for several years as Chinese art bibliographer at the Marquand Library of Art and Archaeology at Princeton University.
DESIGNATED ASIAN ART APPRAISER
-ASA in Asian Art & Appraisal Review and Management (ARM)
Wei Yang is an independent art appraiser, serving her clients in compliance with the highest professional standards. In 2008 she earned a certificate of Fine and Decorative Art Appraisal from Pratt Institute in New York after completing coursework on principles, methodologies, legal aspects and report writing, and was certified in the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP). In 2010 from the American Society of Appraisers she earned the designation of Accredited Senior Appraiser (ASA) in Asian Art after passing expertise tests on Asian art and appraisers’ code of ethics; in 2017 she earned a second designation of Accredited Senior Appraiser (ASA) in Appraisal Review and Management in Personal Property (ARM). Over the past 17 years, Dr. Yang has offered appraisal services in Asian art with a concentration on Chinese art and has conducted reviews of appraisals prepared by other appraisers to assist in insurance settlements and taxation litigation.
CHINESE ART EXPERT WITNESS
-Appraisal Review, Consulting & Testifying Expert
Wei Yang serves regularly as art expert witness for litigations concerning Chinese art, concentrating on classical Chinese painting and calligraphy. Since 2015, she has served as expert appraiser, review appraiser, consulting expert and testifying expert witness for insurance settlements and taxation litigation. She has offered professional opinions in the form of appraisal reviews on the quality of appraisals prepared by other appraisers, including the reliability of proposed value conclusions. For taxation litigation, she has discussed the problem of authenticity in classical Chinese painting and calligraphy and assessed unreliable value conclusions, flawed appraisal methodologies and cherry-picked sales data. She has prepared expert appraisals of Chinese art for charitable donation, capital gains, estate taxation and distribution of estates. She has produced appraisal review reports, research reports, deposition reports and rebuttal reports for court proceedings. She has served as testifying court expert on authentication and originality of classical Chinese paintings, qualitative ranking criteria, appraisal methodologies for rare Chinese art works and the impact of unqualified comparables on fair market value conclusions.
AUTHOR & EDUCATOR
-On Chinese Art Connoisseurship & Valuation
Wei Yang is an independent Chinese art historian and Asian art appraiser with a special interest in connoisseurship, art criticism and valuation of Chinese art. Over 40 years, her career has spanned art education, docotoral research in museums and in the field, teaching and research in academia, qualification as Accredited Senior Appraiser (ASA), and work as an appraiser, expert witness and author. Dr. Yang's recent publications (Books by Wei Yang ) include: Wei Yang’s Guide to Chinese Painting and Calligraphy (two volumes, Tianjin: Nankai University Press, 2022), a comprehensive English reference book for Chinese art professionals, collectors and the general public; "Five Mistakes in Appraising Premodern Chinese Paintings," ARM E-Journal 5, no. 1 (2021): 58-62; a memoir (in Chinese), Desert Bloom (Beijing: Beijing Publishing House, 2020). She is now wrapping up her next two reference books, on Chinese ceramics and Chinese jade.
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