Chinese American Museum to Honor Local and National Luminaries and Heroes from Chinese American Community at Inaugural Gold Lantern Awards Gala

Washington, DC - April 27, 2022 – The Chinese American Museum DC (CAMDC) will honor distinguished local and national members of the Chinese American community for their leadership, service, and social impact at the inaugural Gold Lantern Awards Gala at The St. Regis Hotel in Washington D.C. on Tuesday, May 3, 2022. CAMDC officially opened its doors last year and is the first museum in the nation’s capital dedicated to the Chinese American story.

Corporate and cultural community leaders will come together to celebrate the honorees, along with distinguished members of the greater Asian American community including the Committee of 100, 1882 Foundation, business leaders, ambassadors including His Excellency Ashok and Gouri Mirpuri, Embassy of Singapore, and Maryland state elected officials.

The Gold Lantern Awards will be awarded to the following:

·       The Chinese Culture and Community Service Center (CCACC), a nonprofit based in Gaithersburg, Md. and one of the largest grassroots organizations serving the greater Washington, D.C. area

·       Andrew and Peggy Cherng, Co-founders, Panda Restaurant Group with over 2,200 restaurants and the Panda Cares Foundation and now the Community Care Fund which has donated millions of dollars in response to the pandemic to combat food insecurity

·       Christopher Tin, two-time Grammy Award winning composer and the first for video games, considered a significant milestone for the critical acceptance of music from video games as a legitimate art form

·       Grace Young, 2022 James Beard Humanitarian of the Year and award-winning cookbook author

·       Mei Xu, Founder and CEO of three global companies including Yes She May, a community and marketplace for women entrepreneurs, and Chesapeake Bay Candle

Additional awardees will be announced at the event.

“We want to shine a light on these incredible Chinese Americans who are the epitome of excellence, leadership and service to the community, not just among Asians but society at large,” said David Uy, CAMDC’s Executive Director. “They inspire by their tenacity, courage, creativity, and success. And most importantly, they inspire by their generosity, giving back to causes close to their heart.”

Performances will include opera singer Frank Zhang and the University of Maryland’s Ethnobeat, a unique multilingual, multicultural a cappella group that looks past cultural barriers and embraces diversity of all people.

Proceeds from this event will help to support exhibitions, programs, and    operations at CAMDC events and webinars designed to increase understanding, awareness, and acceptance of Chinese Americans as an integral part of American history.

The gala is sold out. No more general tickets remain for this live event. For more information, go to: www.ChineseAmericanMuseum.org.

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About The Chinese American Museum DC

A nonprofit 501 ©(3) organization, the museum advances the understanding, knowledge, and appreciation of the Chinese American experience, by highlighting the history, culture, spirit, and contributions of Chinese Americans to our nation and beyond.. Housed in a five-story, 1907 Beaux Arts-style mansion in downtown DC, just five blocks north of the White House, the museum is the first and only destination in the Washington area dedicated to the Chinese American story. General admission to the museum is free.

Retrospective Exhibit - Dora Fugh Lee: A Lifetime of Art at the Chinese American Museum DC

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Retrospective Exhibit - Dora Fugh Lee: A Lifetime of Art at the Chinese American Museum DC
September 20, 2021  

WASHINGTON, DC – The Chinese American Museum DC announced a new exhibit opening Saturday, September 25th, Dora Fugh Lee: A Lifetime of Art. The exhibit is the first complete retrospective of the American artist’s expansive work bridging both eastern and western influences and artforms from traditional Chinese brushwork to impressionist oil paintings. The exhibit features more than 50 works of art including ink paintings, watercolors, oils, and sculpture.

Dora Fugh Lee’s name in Chinese is Fu Duoruo. She was born in 1929 in Beijing into the Manchu Fuca clan.  Generations of high military officials, royalty, and artists are among Dora Lee’s family lineage, with bonds to both the East and West. The Fu family’s ancestors include the first empress of the Qianlong Emperor, Empress Xiaoxianchun, Grand Secretary Fu Heng, and Prince Fu Kang’an of the Qing Dynasty. The spelling of their surname Fu was changed to “Fugh” by Dora Lee’s father in the 1920’s. 

At age four, Dora Lee was singled out as a promising artist by her grandfather, Fu Ruiqing. He served as a national Senator in the late Qing dynasty and in the early Nationalist period of China’s history. She was the only grandchild allowed to sit and learn from him as he practiced calligraphy and painting. At age 11, Dora became a student of Yan Shaoxiang, a renowned master of figure painting. She studied Gongbi, a realistic portrait painting style.

Dora Lee attended an all-girls Catholic school in Beijing and studied directly under Zhao Mengzhu, a master of modern Chinese fine brushwork flower-and-bird painting. He was a member of the Hu She Painting Association, known as “the Cradle of Modern Chinese Painting.”

In 1949, the newly married Mrs. Lee and her husband Richard, left China and resided in Tokyo, Japan, for a time where she became a student of Pu Ru, the foremost literati painter and calligrapher of modern China and older cousin of Pu Yi, the last Emperor of China.

A Washingtonian for more than 64 years, Dora Lee settled in Washington, DC, with her husband in 1957. She studied under the artist and sculptor Pietro Lazzari.  In the 1980’s, she taught traditional Chinese painting and calligraphy at the Smithsonian Institution and George Washington University. Dora Lee earned over fifty awards in her career.  Today, her works are in the permanent collections of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Portrait Gallery, National Museum of Asian Art (formerly the Freer and Sackler Galleries,) the National Museum of Women in the Arts, the China Institute, the Pearl Buck Foundation, the National Cathedral, and the University of Virginia among other notable institutions.

About the Chinese American Museum DC

The Chinese American Museum Foundation is a non-profit, non-political, non-geopolitical 501(c)(3) organization based in Washington, DC. Its mission is to advance the understanding, knowledge, and appreciation of the Chinese American experience, by highlighting the history, culture, spirit, and contributions of Chinese Americans to our nation and beyond. The Foundation, with the support of private and institutional funding, is developing the first and only museum dedicated to the Chinese American story in our nation’s capital. To learn more about the Chinese American Museum please visit www.ChineseAmericanMuseum.org.