WELLESLEY, MASS.- For at least a thousand years, collectors in China have gathered and studied shi 石, stones prized for capturing, in miniature, the mountains, clouds and other forms of the natural world. This ancient tradition will be explored in Shi: Stories in Stone, an exhibition that opens Sept. 25 at the Davis Museum at Wellesley College and runs through May 30, 2027. The exhibition is free and open to the public Tuesday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

The shape of 石 shi, the Chinese character meaning "stone" or "rock," mimics a small stone falling from a high cliff. The word “shi” can be associated with three categories of material: rocks, minerals, and fossils that people have collected and studied for centuries. In English, these stones are commonly called scholar’s rocks. This name indicated that historically, an educated elite led the collection of shi. Today, people from around the world collect stones, and new types of shi are collected and appreciated, showing the tradition is vital and evolving.


China, Yellow Wax Stone, Modern period, 20th century, Quartz from Qingyuan City, Guangdong Province, China, 20th-century wooden stand, Southern openwork style, Gift of Alan Helms 2024.15.10a-b

To build on this tradition and explain its modern-day appeal, Shi: Stories in Stone offers cross-disciplinary perspectives on nature, science, art, and culture. The exhibition brings together scholars of science, art and literature to examine an encyclopedic stone collection donated to the museum by Alan Helms, professor emeritus of English at the University of Massachusetts Boston and the University of Paris.

“Everyone can be a shi collector,” said the exhibition’s curator Yuhua Ding, the Davis Museum's Kemper Assistant Curator of Collections and Academic Affairs, who worked with art institutions, collectors, and contemporary artists to organize the exhibition.

The exhibition offers multi-sensory activities that let visitors touch, hear, and appreciate the stone through audio, videos, an interactive map, and 3D prints created by Wellesley College art professors and students.


China, Malachite in the Shape of the Laughing Buddha, Modern period, 20th century, Mineral, copper carbonate hydroxide from Guangdong, Hubei, or Jiangxi provinces, 20th-century wooden stand, Northern style, Gift of Alan Helms 2017.148

Among the works on view is Ying Stone in the Form of Spiraling Incense Smoke, a 20th-century limestone form from Yingde county in Guangdong province, mounted on a carved wooden stand in the Southern openwork style. Its name comes from its shape. Chinese people liken stone forms to mountains, animals, people, or figures from folktales. Collectors consider these rocks to possess vitality and anthropomorphic qualities. The exhibition groups its holdings by the three categories shi has traditionally described: rock, mineral and fossil. It asks what each has meant to scientists, artists and writers across centuries of study.


Yu-Wen Wu, Artifact X, 2024, Rocks, fitted to porcelain stands, Courtesy of artist and Praise Shadows Art Gallery

“This exhibition is an important cultural and historical exploration that we hope will connect visitors to nature, in addition to learning about Chinese art histories,” said Dina Deitsch, the Davis Museum’s new Ruth Gordon Shapiro ‘37 Director.

Contributing to the exhibition are: Katrin Monecke, associate professor of geosciences at Wellesley and David Teng-Olsen, professor of art. Wellesley students Eliza Yiru Mei '27 and Idie Park '26, Michelle C. Lee. Andrew W. Mellon, an assistant professor of French and Francophone studies at Wellesley, and Gillian Yanzhuang Zhang, adjunct professor at Boston College, also shaped the exhibition's development. Loans from the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art and the Harvard Art Museums supplement the collection.


Yu Peng 于彭, Fragrance of Book and Elegance of Mind, 1990, Ink on paper, Courtesy of Mee-Seen Loong ‘72

Shi: Stories in Stone is funded in part by a donation from Morgan Stanley, with support from Eric Hamburger, and by major funding from the Alice Gertrude Spink Art Fund, the Sandra Cohen Bakalar '55 Fund, the Davis Museum Endowed Fund for International Cultural Programming, and the Davis Museum Asian Studies Advancement Gift. Additional support came from Kate and Gerald Chertavian, Henri Chen Kezhan, Mathieu O. Gaulin, Marilyn Hamburger, Mee-Seen Long '72, Kemin Hu, Praise Shadows Art Gallery, Sophie Sa '65, Yvonne L.C. Wong, Yu-Wen Wu, and the Xutizhai Collection.


China, Stalactite, Modern period, 20th century, Limestone formed in caves in Guangxi, Guizhou, Zhejiang, and Yunnan provinces, 20th-century wooden stand, Jiangnan style, Gift of Alan Helms 2017.126