Hung Liu

Portraits of Promised Lands

Hung Liu: Portraits of Promised Lands, edited by Dorothy Moss, presents the work of contemporary Chinese American artist, Hung Liu (1948–2021). Blending painting and photography, Liu offers new frameworks for understanding portraiture in relation to time, memory, and history. Often working from photographs, she uses portraiture to elevate overlooked subjects, amplifying the stories of those who have historically been invisible or unheard. This book examines six decades of Liu’s painting, photography, and drawing.

As an immigrant, Hung Liu had a deep understanding of the challenges faced in coming to America. She was drawn to Dorothea Lange’s Depression-era photographs as Americans were forced to move across the country in extraordinarily difficult conditions.

My essay, Deeply Familiar: Hung Liu and Dorothea Lange, focuses on Liu’s images based on Lange’s photographs, as well as the fascinating parallels between Liu’s and Lange’s lives and work.

The book/exhibition catalog was created to accompany Hung Liu’s exhibition, Hung Liu: Portraits of Promised Lands, at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, 2021-22.