Empresses and pandas across several sites
A long-running installation of empress portraits and panda paintings at multiple MGH locations, including children’s areas.
March 2025 – 2026
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Paintings for rooms where people wait
Xiang Li’s paintings hang in hospitals, clinics and treatment rooms. This page describes where, what kinds of work have suited those spaces, and how installations have been arranged.
Slow paintings, steady presence
Xiang Li 李湘 learned patience in the Forbidden City’s restoration studio, over thirty-seven years. A single empress on silk takes her three to six months. People who sit with the paintings often describe them as calm and grounding, whether or not they know the history.
Her daughter, Fei Wu, produces the studio’s work and coordinates the installations.
- 2
- Hospital systems in Massachusetts
- 3–6
- Months to paint one empress on silk
- 37
- Years in the Forbidden City’s studio
What has suited care settings
Three collections that have worked in hospitals and clinics.
Hospitals and clinics
Long-term and seasonal installations in two Massachusetts hospital systems, and canvases in private healing practices.
Framed works in Worcester hospitals
A season of framed paintings across multiple UMass Memorial hospitals in Worcester.
Dec 2024 – Mar 2025
Empresses in treatment rooms
Several empress canvases now hang in acupuncture clinics and holistic health offices. Practitioners tell us patients notice them and feel grounded before treatment begins; two or three together set a calm rhythm in a room.
2025 – 2026 Read the story →
Installation options
Each installation is planned with the site.
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A long-term installation
Framed works across several sites for a year or more, as at Massachusetts General Hospital since March 2025.
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A seasonal rotation
A set of framed works for a few months, then changed, as at UMass Memorial in 2024–25.
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Canvas prints
Printed canvases where originals are not practical.
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Choosing works for a room
Help pairing two or three paintings that sit well together in a waiting or treatment room.
Venues that have hosted the work
- Thomas Crane Public Library · May 22, 2027
- Museum of Fine Arts, Boston · February 7, 2027
- Worcester Art Museum · January 31, 2027
- Newton Free Library
- Wellesley Free Library
- LabCentral
- Tatnuck Bookseller
- Gutman Library, Harvard Graduate School of Education
- Happy Lamb Hot Pot, Boston Chinatown
- New England Botanic Garden at Tower Hill
- Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH)
- UMass Memorial Health
- College of the Holy Cross
- Denholm Building
- Cambridge Public Library
- Harvard Museums
Questions
For framing and cleaning requirements, loan or purchase terms, or images for a review committee, write to the studio. Fei Wu produces and presents the studio’s programs and will answer.
Contact the studio Fei Wu · Producer and speaker · Xiang Li’s daughter
xiangliart@gmail.com