Wang Tao

In 2012 Wang left the UK to take up a position as the senior vice president and head of Chinese works at Sotheby’s in New York. In 2015, he was appointed the curator of Chinese art and Pritzker Chair at the Art Institute of Chicago.

After obtaining his PhD, Wang took up a position as lecturer in Chinese archaeology at SOAS. He was Chair of the Centre of Chinese Studies at SOAS from 2005 to 2008. He was later appointed a senior lecturer at SOAS and University College London. He worked with Peter Ucko of the UCL Institute of Archaeology to develop links with archaeology departments in China, and helped found the International Centre for Chinese Heritage and Archaeology (ICCHA), a research centre jointly established by UCL and Peking University. He was instrumental in arranging the publication of Xia Nai’s thesis “Ancient Egyptian Beads” (70 years after Xia Nai completed it). He also worked to promote links between the private art markets in China and the United Kingdom.

Wang Tao (simplified Chinese: 汪涛 ; traditional Chinese: 汪濤 , born 1962) is a Chinese–British archaeologist and art historian specialising in early Chinese art. He is also known for his work on early inscriptions on oracle bones and ritual bronzes. He is married to numismatist and translator Helen Wang.

Wang was born in Kunming in 1962. He studied Chinese literature at Yunnan Normal University and did postgraduate work at the China Academy of Art. Wang moved to London in 1986. He studied under Sarah Allan at SOAS University of London, earning his PhD in 1993. His thesis was titled Colour Symbolism in Late Shang China.