Elizabeth Emrich-Rougé is an independent art historian, art educator and museum professional. Her research addresses the materiality, circulation and aesthetic qualities of transnational leftist material in the first half of the twentieth-century, with a particular focus on popular publications and film produced in Republican-era China. Building on her doctoral scholarship, which expanded the historiography of the modern Chinese woodblock print movement, her current research focuses on artists' instrumentalisation of affect in printmaking, photography, manhua, and film in China during the transition from the Republican to Socialist eras. Her primary book project is titled Textures of Emotion: Transnational Aesthetics of Angst in China, 1931-1957.
A second book project, titled Paper Trails: Mapping Early Socialist Aesthetics in China, 1931-1945, uses digital humanities and art historical methods to connect the output of Chinese artists and writers with work created around the globe in the first half of the twentieth century.
With research partner Dr. Madeline Eschenburg, Elizabeth is also investigating the collection of Chinese contemporary art by cultural institutions in the United States and Canada since 2000 as part of the project 'Collecting China's New Art in America: Post-2000'.
Finally, and related to her continuing interest in collection histories and practices, she and Dr. Madeline Eschenburg are co-editing a volume, The Politics of Provenance: Collecting Global Art in North America, which uses "North America" as a framework of analysis to investigate the commonalities and differences between collections of global art, including collections of art from Indigenous communities, formed across and within the national boundaries of Canada, the United States, and Mexico. It hopes to illuminate the political implications of individual collectors', dealers', and institutions' acquisitions made at particular times and places across the continent.
A second book project, titled Paper Trails: Mapping Early Socialist Aesthetics in China, 1931-1945, uses digital humanities and art historical methods to connect the output of Chinese artists and writers with work created around the globe in the first half of the twentieth century.
With research partner Dr. Madeline Eschenburg, Elizabeth is also investigating the collection of Chinese contemporary art by cultural institutions in the United States and Canada since 2000 as part of the project 'Collecting China's New Art in America: Post-2000'.
Finally, and related to her continuing interest in collection histories and practices, she and Dr. Madeline Eschenburg are co-editing a volume, The Politics of Provenance: Collecting Global Art in North America, which uses "North America" as a framework of analysis to investigate the commonalities and differences between collections of global art, including collections of art from Indigenous communities, formed across and within the national boundaries of Canada, the United States, and Mexico. It hopes to illuminate the political implications of individual collectors', dealers', and institutions' acquisitions made at particular times and places across the continent.
Concurrent to her dissertation research, Elizabeth also worked as the general Curatorial Assistant (2005-2013) and the Curatorial Assistant for Asian Art (2017-2018) at Cornell University’s Johnson Museum of Art. Her most recent curatorial projects include re-installations of the Museum’s permanent collection galleries of Chinese and Southeast Asian art between 2017 and 2018, and the co-organization with Dr. Yuhua Ding, also in 2018, of the exhibition ‘Debating Art: Chinese Intellectuals at the Crossroads’.
From 2023 to 2025 Elizabeth was a Cambridge Visual Culture (CVC) Visiting Fellow at the Department of History of Art, University of Cambridge, UK. She holds a PhD (2020) and MA (2014) from Cornell University, a MA (2005) from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, and a BA (2004) from Cornell University.
Image above is a detail from Luo Gusun, Manjusri Temple in Front of Mountain Mist, published in Sheying Huabao 11, No. 4, 3 February 1935. Image courtesy of Zhongguo Baokan Suoyin (CNBKSY, Shanghai Library).
Image above is a detail from Luo Gusun, Manjusri Temple in Front of Mountain Mist, published in Sheying Huabao 11, No. 4, 3 February 1935. Image courtesy of Zhongguo Baokan Suoyin (CNBKSY, Shanghai Library).