The collector as detective

When Kuang talks about old paintings, his language often slips into the vocabulary of criminal investigation — cold cases, broken chains of custody, "firsthand" versus "secondhand" evidence, and the need to grade proof rather than simply assert it.

The habit dates back to his youth. In the 1970s, while unemployed, he helped compile census statistics at a local police station. At night, while officers were out on patrol, he read through hundreds of original criminal case files.

"Even then, I wanted to be a detective," he says. That instinct never left him. In 1990, after graduating from the postgraduate program in electrical engineering at the Harbin Institute of Technology, Kuang began to apply what he called "engineering optimization plus philosophy plus criminal investigation principles" to solve "millennium cold cases" in art history.

This methodology sharply contrasts with that of conservative museum professionals who, according to Kuang, "rarely get to see major 'national treasure' works that are outside museums" and often "don't dare touch them" due to fear of academic criticism or creating scholarly paradoxes.

Lacking traditional art history credentials, Kuang embraces his status as an "outlaw", which he believes gives him the freedom to take intellectual risks.

His initial foray into collecting, around 1998 or 1999, was fueled by a "very plain feeling, simple emotion". While commuting to a programming school in Virginia where he taught, he began visiting American antique stores.

"If you encounter these works, it's like seeing a baby crying by the roadside," he says.

"You can't just walk past. You have to pick them up.

"After that, each acquisition came with an effort to trace provenance and clarify historical clues."

A Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127) painting he purchased early on became a turning point.

After nearly two years of self-directed study, he determined that the work was a later copy rather than an original. The process led him to read foundational art history texts and closely study Song paintings in major museums, forming what he describes as a solid practical and theoretical base.

"My wife likes to say nobody bothers forging this group of China trade paintings," Kuang says. "There are very few in China, so we had to look overseas."

The couple narrowed their focus to oil paintings featuring Qing Dynasty coastal defense infrastructure like forts and warships, as well as Chinese celebrities. These images, they believe, are not only artworks, but also "irreplaceable" historical records of a world that largely drifted overseas.

"We call it 'drifting history'," Kuang says.

"The more we studied, the more we realized how much of the Qing Dynasty's visual record was not preserved in China — many things drifted overseas. We started writing articles about China trade paintings."