Shi: Stories in Stone at the Davis Museum, tracing a 1,000-year tradition of stone collecting

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. 

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.

Photo credit: China, Ying Stone in the Form of Spiraling Incense Smoke, Modern period, 20thcentury, Limestone from Yingde county, Guangdong province, 20th-century woodenstand, Southern openwork style, Gift of Alan Helms 2024.15.7a-b

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