Deputy Director
Shanghai Museum

Chen Kelun is curator and Deputy Director of the Shanghai Museum, Adjunct Professor at Fudan University and a member of the committee of the National Commission for Cultural Relics Identification. He studied archeology in university and worked in Zhejiang Provincial Museum as a research fellow in cultural relics after graduation. Later he obtained a Masters degree from Fudan University under the instruction of Prof. Want Qingzheng, a celebrated expert in the Chinese ancient ceramics community. In 1990 he began his work at the Shanghai Museum.

Chen is an outstanding scholar in the museum field. He possesses extensive and thorough professional theories, strong study and research capacity, and has conducted systematic studies on cultural relics, archeology and museology. In particular, Chen is fully devoted to the study of Chinese ancient ceramics. He is also widely-experienced in organizing museum exhibitions.

Chen has published papers in various academic fields, including the study of Chinese ancient ceramics, archeology, history, cultural and museology. His innovative opinions have been widely recognized in his field.

Since 1996, Chen has been the organizer and curator of nearly one hundred exhibitions held in the Shanghai Museum, which were warmly welcomed by audiences and highly praised by experts. Chen gives courses on cultural relics and museology, such as the history of ancient Chinese ceramics and museology basics, in Fudan University and Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Some of his students have now become directors of several important Chinese museums.

In September 1998, Elysée Palace Paris, Chen was awarded the Ordre National du Mérite, le Président de la République Française by Chirac, the former French president, to commend his important contribution to the cultural relics study and the development of Chinese museum causes.