Wei Yang, Ph.D., ASA

CHINESE ART EXPERT WITNESS

Wei Yang, Ph.D. in Chinese Art

Expert witnesses build on their training, skills and experience in Chinese art and appraisal and comply with the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) and the code of ethics for appraisers.. They provide clear, unbiased analysis, reports and testimony to judges, juries, attorneys, and their clients.

Dr. Wei Yang serves as an effective expert witness with credentials and a set of unique skills. She is the expert witness who wrote books ( see Books and Article by Wei Yang. Apart from writing about Chinese art, she lectured and gave speeches about Chinese art and Tibetan art at professional conferences or workshops. With a M.A. degree in Asian art (1998) from Smith College and a Ph.D. in Chinese art and Tibetan art (2005) from Northwestern University, she has been working hard to advance her appraisal and expert witness testifying skills by reading extensively law books and past case files.

Dr. Yang is ready for intellectual challenges as an effective expert witness. To master the appraisal methodologies and rules, she earned a Certificate of Fine Art and Decorative Art (2008) from Pretty Institute in New York. To develop her intuitive skills for detecting fakes and identifying forgery methods, she earned a Cerfiticate of Painting Mounting and Conservation (2010) from Shandong Painting Mounting and Conservation Academy in Jinnan, Shandong, China. Dr. Yang is an independent Asian art appraiser with two Accredited Senior Appraiser designations -Asian Art (ASA, 2010-2025) and Appraisal Review and Management (ARM, 2017-2025)-from American Society of Appraisers.

Dr. Yang is a lifelong Chinese art educator and writer. She has dedicated four decades to the study and valuation of Chinese art. Before attending graduate schools in the United States, Dr. Yang worked 15 years as Associate Research Fellow and Deputy director of Education Department, Dunhuang Research Academy (Gansu, China), the largest Buddhist center in the world. As a trained art historian, Dr. Yang is deeply interested in Chinese connoisseurship, art criticism and painting and sculptural techniques, etc. She mastered a set of unique language skills essential to the valuation of Chinese art. She reads classical Chinese texts, speaks modern Chinese; reads and speaks Japanese and some Tibetan. She has the ability to identify different classical Chinese scripts (standard, semi-cursive, cursive, clerical and seal carving) frequently apppear on Chinese painting and calligraphy.

Dr. Yang enjoys working on difficult research projects and writing about her findings and professional opinions based on facts and evidence. As a competent Chinese art expert witness, she delivers effective consuting and testifying expert witness services with professional integrity and competence. She has served as  Asian Art Appraiser since 2005, Review Appraiser and Chinese Art Expert Witness for litigation since 2015.

Dr. Yang brings integrity, professional training, competence in multiple fields, and impartiality to her work.

Dr. Wei Yang Specializes in Asian art with a concentration on Chinese art.

CONTACT US

Email : Contact Dr. Wei Yang

Website : chineseartappraisal.com

Phone :  (609) 688-6891

Address :  Princeton, NJ 08540, USA

ART EXPERT WITNESS

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 in Asian Art (ASA, 2010-2025), Dr. Yang has prepared appraisals of most forms of Asian art and offered opinions on art authenticity, conservation on value, valuation for insurance, authenticity and taxation litigation. As an Accredited Senior Appraiser in Appraisal Review and Management (ARM, 2017-2025), she has performed appraisal review of appraisals prepared by other appraisers for various purposes. She 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, 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 in Asian Art (ASA, 2010-2025) & Appraisal Review (ARM, 2017-2025)

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 15th 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 2008, a designation of Accredited Senior Appraiser in Asian Art (ASA, 2010-2025) from American Society of Appraisers, a certificate in Chinese Painting Mounting and Restoration (2010) from the Mounting and Restoration Academy (Jinan, Shandong), and a second designation as Accredited Senior Appraiser in Appraisal Review and Management (ARM, 2017-2025) from American Society of Appraisers. She serves as an examiner of Asian art speciality in American Society of Appraisers (2017-2025).

AUTHOR & EDUCATOR

On Chinese Art Connoisseurship & Valuation

Wei Yang's Guide to Chinese Painting & Calligraphy     by Wei Yang     
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) (Available on Amazon) ; "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) is Available on Amazon. 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.