Democratic Progressive Party Taipei City councilors were furious yesterday at the Taipei 228 Memorial Museum because a painting of great historic significance by Taiwanese artist Lan Yin-ting (藍蔭鼎) was hidden in an archive and folded in half.
Taipei City Councilor Chien Yu-yen (簡余晏) said this shows that the 228 Memorial Museum is handling the nation’s valuable cultural treasures in a roughshod manner.
The painting was an important period piece by Lan, with portrayals of key government figures at a July 4 reception at the US consulate in Taipei in 1946.
Photo: Lin Shu-hui, Taipei Times
Lan (1903-1979) was born in Yilan County’s Luodong Township (羅東) and went on to become a leading Taiwanese artist, and was once named one of the world’s top 10 watercolor painters by the European Art Critic Society and the American Art Critic Society.
He attended the reception at the US consulate in 1946, and produced the painting, which proved prescient in light of the 228 Massacre eight months later.
Lan portrayed the tension between US diplomatic officials and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) military officers who had shortly before taken over the administration of Taiwan.
The painting showed KMT-appointed then-Taiwan governor-general Chen Yi (陳儀) talking to the top US official while then-chief of staff for the Taiwan Garrison Command Ke Yuan-fen (柯遠芬), dressed in his military uniform, stares straight ahead, haughtily ignoring the other figures.
Standing next to Ke is US vice consul George Kerr, who later penned the book Formosa Betrayed, to document his experience of the 228 Massacre events.
Lan gave the painting to Kerr as a gift.
After Kerr’s death in 1992, then-museum director Iap Phok-bun (葉博文) purchased the painting and other 228-related documents from Kerr’s family.
Chien, Taipei City Coucilor Hsu Shu-hua (許淑華) and some others went to the museum yesterday to inspect it.
Chien requested to see this particular painting by Lan, but at first, the staff could not find it.
Museum staff eventually located the painting, but Chien was indignant because it was folded in half and placed in a folder.
“This painting was appraised by experts, who valued it at more than NT$1 million [US$33,000]. It is also a key historic item, documenting an important chapter of Taiwan’s history. Much effort was involved to bring it back to Taiwan,” Chien said. “But we found it folded up and it had sustained some damage. This indicates the museum is handling these valuable items very badly.”
In response, museum director Hsieh Ying-tseng (謝英從) said the painting was folded up when they received it.
However, Chien questioned the explanation, and said even if that were the case, it should not have been folded up and hidden in the archive files.
An apartment building in New Taipei City’s Sanchong District (三重) collapsed last night after a nearby construction project earlier in the day allegedly caused it to tilt. Shortly after work began at 9am on an ongoing excavation of a construction site on Liuzhang Street (六張街), two neighboring apartment buildings tilted and cracked, leading to exterior tiles peeling off, city officials said. The fire department then dispatched personnel to help evacuate 22 residents from nine households. After the incident, the city government first filled the building at No. 190, which appeared to be more badly affected, with water to stabilize the
Taiwan plans to cull as many as 120,000 invasive green iguanas this year to curb the species’ impact on local farmers, the Ministry of Agriculture said. Chiu Kuo-hao (邱國皓), a section chief in the ministry’s Forestry and Nature Conservation Agency, on Sunday said that green iguanas have been recorded across southern Taiwan and as far north as Taichung. Although there is no reliable data on the species’ total population in the country, it has been estimated to be about 200,000, he said. Chiu said about 70,000 iguanas were culled last year, including about 45,000 in Pingtung County, 12,000 in Tainan, 9,900 in
DEEPER REVIEW: After receiving 19 hospital reports of suspected food poisoning, the Taipei Department of Health applied for an epidemiological investigation A buffet restaurant in Taipei’s Xinyi District (信義) is to be fined NT$3 million (US$91,233) after it remained opened despite an order to suspend operations following reports that 32 people had been treated for suspected food poisoning, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. The health department said it on Tuesday received reports from hospitals of people who had suspected food poisoning symptoms, including nausea, vomiting, stomach pain and diarrhea, after they ate at an INPARADISE (饗饗) branch in Breeze Xinyi on Sunday and Monday. As more than six people who ate at the restaurant sought medical treatment, the department ordered the
ALLEGED SABOTAGE: The damage inflicted by the vessel did not affect connection, as data were immediately rerouted to other cables, Chunghwa Telecom said Taiwan suspects that a Chinese-owned cargo vessel damaged an undersea cable near its northeastern coast on Friday, in an alleged act of sabotage that highlights the vulnerabilities of Taipei’s offshore communications infrastructure. The ship is owned by a Hong Kong-registered company whose director is Chinese, the Financial Times reported on Sunday. An unidentified Taiwanese official cited in the report described the case as sabotage. The incident followed another Chinese vessel’s suspected involvement in the breakages of data cables in the Baltic Sea in November last year. While fishing trawlers are known to sometimes damage such equipment, nation states have also
RSS