Jar (Ping) with Dragon and Clouds, Yuan dynasty, 1279-1368, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, purchased with funds provided by Jack G. Kuhrts. ©Museum Associates/LACMA

MONTEREY PARK, CALIF. – The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is presenting works from the museum’s Chinese art collection in the Vincent Price Art Museum in a special exhibition. “Chinese Ceramics from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art,” on view January 24-July 22, will showcase 50 ceramic masterpieces with examples from the Neolithic period to the Nineteenth Century that exhibit a variety of styles and techniques, including works made of low-fired earthenware and high-fired stoneware and porcelain.

This exhibition is part of a new LACMA initiative that launched in summer 2016 called Onsite: Neighborhood Partnerships with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

The ceramics on show include some of the first examples of Chinese art to enter LACMA’s collection in the 1920s and 30s, presenting a chance to view some of the most important styles and techniques in Chinese ceramic history, a wide range of symbols commonly found in Chinese art and a selection of ceramics designed to be exported to countries outside of China.

This exhibition, comprising works from LACMA’s permanent collection, presents an introduction to Chinese ceramics, with examples from circa 2500 BCE (Neolithic period) to the Nineteenth Century, and is curated by Stephen Little, Florence and Harry Sloan curator of Chinese art and department head, Chinese and Korean art.

Divided into three sections, the exhibition first provides a survey of the technical development of Chinese ceramics, including the three basic types of clay – earthenware, stoneware and porcelain – and decorative techniques, such as glazing. The second section focuses on some of the symbols and narratives embedded in the decoration of Chinese ceramics, including designs key to understanding Chinese cosmology, religion, history and society. The exportation of Chinese ceramics to other parts of Asia began as early as the Seventh and Eighth Centuries, and to Europe in the Sixteenth Century.

The third section presents ceramics exported to Japan, Southeast Asia, the Near East, Europe and the Americas between the Fourteenth and Nineteenth Centuries.

Vincent Price Art Museum is at 1301 Avenida Cesar Chavez. For information, www.vincentpriceartmuseum.org, www.lacma.org or 323-857-6522.