Bahr, A. W.

• 1877: Born in Shanghai to German father and Chinese mother
• Circa 1880s: Educated at St. Xavier's School in Shanghai
• Circa 1894: Work as a clerk at a wholesale and retail coal merchant's office, left solely in charge during the first Sino-Japanese war, encouraged by backers to start his own business
• 1898: Goes into business with shipping friend, started the Central Trading Company
• 1900: Marries Miss Helen Marion Southey (daughter of Mr. T.S. Southey, in Hong Kong. Working at firm of Hopkins Dunn and Company. Begins construction on his first house, Fairview, outside the settlement on North Honan Road Extension, first son born[?]
• 1901: Recipient of Victoria Medal for his role as a gunner during the Boxer Rebellion (had joined the Shanghai Volunteers)
• 1908: Shanghai Exhibition of Chinese Art, which he helped to organize and which he loaned many pieces from his own collection. Secretary of the Royal Asiatic Society. Publishes a catalogue of the exhibit in 1911, "Old Chinese Porcelains and Works of Art in China: Being Description and Illustrations of Articles selected from an Exhibition held in Shanghai, November 1908"
• 1909: Begins his association with Lord Kitchener; travels with him through China
• 1910: Leaves permanent residence in China, moves to London, England
• 1911: Catalogue of an Exhibition of Early Chinese Paintings from the Collection of A.W. Bahr, published by the Fine Art Society
• 1915: Applies to Foreign Office in London to go to America. (Involved in the art business; the war had stopped all such activities in London)
• 1927: Private printing of the catalogue, "Archaic Chinese Jades collected in China by A.W. Bahr, now in Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, described by Berthold Laufer"
• 1938: "Early Chinese Paintings from the A.W. Bahr Collection" by Osvald Siren, published by the Chiswick Press
• 1946: Leaves England, with his wife, daughter Edna, two sons and their wives and two granddaughters for Canada
• 1947: Metropolitan Museum of Art purchases Chinese paintings from Bahr, collection of archaic jades exhibited in the Royal Ontario Museum. The Met also publishes a portfolio of the painting, 'Ching Ming Shang Ho, Spring Festival on the River' which Bahr had donated to the museum
• 1948: The Met exhibits Bahr's Chinese paintings. Several Chinese art objects on loan to the Art Association of Montreal and exhibited in the new Far East gallery
• 1949: Tang figurine, paint cakes and Han pottery vase on display at the Royal Ontario Museum of Archaeology
• 1950: Donates Chinese ceramics to the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts
• 1951: Begins writing his memoir[?]
• 1952: Last visit to London
• 1954: Gets typed draft of memoir. Living in Ridgefield, CT, working with C.R. Cammell
• 1959: Dies

From the guide to the A.W. Bahr Papers, bulk 1947-1957, 1919-1957, (The Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives)