CHINESE ART FOCUS
-Ph.D. in Chinese Art & Tibetan Art
Dr. Wei Yang provides art expert witness services for litigation concerning Chinese art, with a concentration on classical Chinese painting and calligraphy (prior to 1949). As an Accredited Senior Appraiser (ASA) in Asian Art, Dr. Yang has prepared appraisals of most forms of Asian art and offered opinions on art authenticity and valuation for insurance, authenticity and taxation litigation. As an Accredited Senior Appraiser (ASA) in Appraisal Review and Management of Personal Property (ARM), she has identified, documented and explained errors and omissions in appraisal reports she has reviewed, ranging from irrelevant scope of work to inadequate explanation of research, flawed methodology, insufficient data selection, problematic treatment of provenance, use of unqualified comparables and unreasonable value conclusions. Her strengths are based on her doctoral training and expertise in Chinese aesthetics and art criticism, painting technique, visual aesthetics, and market economics. Dr. Yang has served as Chinese art expert witness, appraisal review appraiser, consulting expert and testifying expert witness for litigations concerning insurance settlements, authenticity and taxation.
RECENT EXPERT WITNESS EXPERIENCE
-Expert Appraiser, Consulting Expert and Testifying Expert
Chinese art expert: Dr. Yang has prepared appraisals for a wide range of litigation needs, ranging from reviewing case files, analyzing evidence or materials, identifying issues and proposing solutions
Appraisal expert witness: Dr. Yang has prepared appraisals of Asian art for insurance, capital gains, estate, authenticity, and income taxation, and written appraisal review reports on the credibility of value conclusion and the USPAP-compliance of appraisals
Consulting expert witness: Dr. Yang has consulted cases relevant to Chinese art, reviewed case materials, prepared preliminary reviews and research reports, identified weaknesses in cases, analyzed opposing expert’s expertise, and assessed adequacy of appraisal methodology, accuracy of data, completeness of scope of work and reasonableness of value conclusion in light of USPAP
Testifying expert witness: Dr. Yang has prepared appraisal reports, rebuttal reports and offered testimony at deposition and in court
QUALIFICATIONS
-Ph.D. in Chinese Art, Accredited Senior Appraiser (ASA) in Asian Art & Appraisal Review (ARM)
Chinese art specialist: Wei Yang holds a B.A. in art history (1997) and M.A. degree in Asian art (1998) from Smith College (Northampton, MA); earned a Ph.D. in Chinese art and Tibetan art (2005)from Northwestern University (Evanston, IL), specializing in Chinese painting and calligraphy from the 10th to 19th centuries; possesses language skills in Chinese, Japanese and Tibetan; reads a wide range of classical Chinese scripts written on Chinese painting and calligraphy; and has conducted research on Chinese art and Asian art in museums and field sites in China, Tibet, Korea, Mongolia, southeast Asia, central Asia, Europe, and North America
Certification in art appraisal: Wei Yang earned a certificate of Fine Art and Decorative Arts Appraisal from Pratt Institute (NY) in 2009, a designation of Accredited Senior Appraiser (ASA) in Asian Art in 2010 from American Society of Appraisers, a certificate in Chinese Painting Mounting and Restoration from the Mounting and Restoration Academy (Jinan, Shandong) in 2011, and a second designation as Accredited Senior Appraiser in Appraisal Review and Management (ARM) in 2017 from American Society of Appraisers. She serves as an examiner of Asian art speciality in American Society of Appraisers since 2017
AUTHOR & EDUCATOR
On Chinese Art Connoisseurship & Valuation
Wei Yang published an English reference book on the connoisseurship and valuation of Chinese art, Wei Yang’s Guide to Chinese Painting and Calligraphy (2 volumes, Nankai University Press, 2022), "Five Mistakes in Appraising Premodern Chinese Paintings," ARM E-Journal 5, no. 1 (2021): 58:62, a memoir (in Chinese), Shazaohua de gushi (Desert Bloom) 沙棗花的故事 (Beijing Publishing House, 2021). She is now completing two further reference books, Wei Yang’s Guide to Chinese Ceramics and Wei Yang’s Guide to Chinese Jade. She worked 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 served as Chinese art bibliographer at the Marquand Library of Art and Archaeology at Princeton University. She has taught in universities and lectured to professional societies worldwide.
Available at: Amazon for Wei Yang's Guide to Chinese Painting & Calligraphy AND Amazon for Shazaohua de gushi (Desert Bloom) 沙枣花的故事.
