The beige, dimly lit room is filled with ancestral art of the Qing Dynasty, lining walls and filling display cases with ancient art featuring religion, family and architecture. These artworks, hidden hundreds of years ago, are now on display as part of an exhibition called "Dynasty--The Ancestral Arts of China."

On April 7, the Museum Studies Program, a two and a half year master program at SF State, opened the doors of room 510 in the Humanities building to showcase the exhibition, which will be open until May 2.

"All of the objects are rescued from the Cultural Revolution," said Linda Ellis, director and chair of Museum Studies. "Lots of China's art was destroyed during the revolution. These are the types of art hidden."

Every item currently on display is from the private collection of SF State professor and program adviser George Leonard. He purchased the ancestral artworks with the guidance of his brother-in-law and SF State alumnus, Y.S. Du.

"Maoists trashed their own culture," Leonard said of the Cultural Revolution. "Peasants were told to destroy temples and homes of the middle class where they kept the ancestors' portraits."

According to Leonard, these peasants hid everything they were to destroy, and in the early 1990s, started to sell these hidden artworks at flea markets and craft fairs. It was at these flea markets that Du came across the saved artwork.

"They put the whole Qing Dynasty on sale," Leonard said. "That's when my brother-in-law bought up the whole generation."

Du was an extremely successful art dealer during the 1990s, moving back and forth between Beijing and the Bay Area, Leonard said. Du sold to galleries and museums only, he said.

Leonard bought artwork that his brother-in-law pointed out was the best, but no longer purchases Chinese art anymore because the entire dynasty's art pieces have already been sold, he said.

"The genuine, authentic stuff has been gone since 2002," Leonard said. "If they sell anything like that anymore today, it's all fake."

For Leonard, his possession of the ancient pieces of artworks is evidence of the richness of the Chinese culture and he uses them in his class as historic proof.

The exhibition has been put together entirely by the students of the Museum Studies Program. Students research, run the exhibit, publish a catalogue, design posters, install the exhibit and run a student program, which allows local students from grades 3-8 to visit.

"Many of the classes in the elementary schools have just finished learning about Asian history," said Allison Krieger, a first year museum studies major. "It's good to [display] a visual aid of what they just learned."

Over 200 students will be taking a field trip to the campus museum in the next month, Krieger, 26, said.

The artworks show a variety of representation of the era, including religious pieces influenced by Taoism. One of the many fragile paintings on silk scrolls hung on the wall such as "'King Yama' in Hell, a Buddhist Purgatory" contains folklore imagery of Buddhist purgatory.

On another wall, silk scrolls once again line the wall with depictions of a family tree entitled "The Court of Ancestors, a Confucian Maestà." It is a painting of hierarchy of a family arranged in subsequent pattern, all dressed in only five different, solid colors.

Filling the center of the room are display cases that contain architectural pieces featuring woodwork that once belonged to ancestral temples and halls.

One wood design, "Architectural elements with dragon," is an elaborately carved image of dragons intertwined with the cloud. Another wood design, "Architectural elements depicting scenes from Guan Yu and Xiang," has a decorative element portraying a scene from a Chinese romance novel.

"Dynasty--The Ancestral Arts of China" is just one of the various collections the museum at SF State presents every semester.

"Having collections from different cultures is a good way of bring people together," Krieger said. "It also gives the university community a chance to see exciting exhibits without having to travel into the city."

Beginning in early May, the Museum Studies Program will celebrate International Museum Week by transforming HUM 510 with posters that display the diversity of museum appreciation from the Pasta Museum to the Natural History Museum.

"Dynasty--The Ancestral Art of China" is open to the public April 7-May 2 from 12-4 Monday through Friday in Humanities 510. Admission is free.

For more information: call (415) 405-0599 or visit the Web site.