George Norbert Kates (November 27, 1895 – March 23, 1990) was an American writer and exponent of classical Chinese culture and decorative arts. His memoir of life in 1930s Beijing—The Years That Were Fat, Peking 1933-1940Harper, 1952 is a widely read memoir of pre-revolution China.published on five occasions - 1952, 1967, 1976, 1989 and 2015 He also wrote one of the first texts on Chinese classical furniture—Chinese Household Furniture - Dover, 1948 and put together a private collection of Ming style hardwood furniture.
Kates graduated summa cum laude from Harvard in 1922 and received a D.Phil. from Oxford University in 1930. An officer in the U.S. Army during World War I, he also served with the State Department in China during World War II. From 1947 to 1949 he was Asian Curator at the Brooklyn Museum. Kates published articles about Chinese history and decorative arts and contributed to two books about author Willa Cather. Several authors associate him with Old Beijing, the first half of the 20th century and the traditional way of life.Cathay, Fergus Bordewich. The Last Days of Old Beijing, Michael Meyer. A Love Affair with Old Beijing, John Roote He is also notable as an important collector of Chinese antiques,The China Collectors, Meyer & Blair Brysac, p.114 and for his contributions to the understanding of the Chinese decorative arts.Austere Luminosity of Chinese Classical Furniture, Handler
Early life
Kates was born in Avondale, a suburb of Cincinnati, Ohio on November 27, 1895.The China Collectors, Meyer & Blair Brysac, p.113 His father, Norbert, was an immigrant from the Ukrainian city of Brody.A Love Affair with Old Beijing, Roote, Chapter 18 His mother was a second generation American, the child of German immigrants.The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 19, No.4, November 1990, p.1014, Obituary of George Kates, Pamela Atwell Both parents were Jewish, although Kates was brought up in a secular household.
In 1896 the family moved to New York City where Norbert Kates built a successful export business,The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 19, No.4, November 1990, p.1014, Obituary of George Kates, Pamela Atwell selling manufacturing goods and equipment to Latin American buyers. His work took him on numerous voyages to countries throughout Central and South America. Sometimes the whole family travelled abroad together to Chile, Argentina, Cuba and Mexico.The Years That Were Fat, Kates, p.2 In Mexico City, George briefly attended a German high school.The Years That Were Fat, Kates, p.2
The Kates family lived in the fashionable and luxurious Ansonia Hotel on Broadway when it opened in 1905 until 1914.A Love Affair with Old Beijing, Roote, Chapter Thirteen - The Making of a Scholar Kates attended middle and high school at Horace Mann preparatory school, then at Morningside Heights, New York, and graduated in 1913.The China Collectors, Meyer & Blair Brysac, p.113
Kates spent two years studying at Columbia University School of Architecture,The China Collectors, Meyer & Blair Brysac, p.114 including a gap year, during which he sailed aboard a Belgian cadet training ship from New York to Cape Town, Calcutta and Melbourne and back again.The Years That Were Fat, Kates, p.2 In 1917, when America entered World War I, Kates enlisted and served as a medical orderly for a year, before being promoted to the rank of second lieutenant and serving as a translator,The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 19, No.4, November 1990, p.1014, Obituary of George Kates, Pamela Atwell due to being a fluent speaker of French and German. He did not return home until 1919.
Harvard, Oxford and Hollywood
After a year working in New York City, Kates enrolled at Harvard College in the fall of 1920 to study History and Fine Arts.The China Collectors, Meyer & Blair Brysac, p.114 There he was taught and mentored by Paul Sachs,The China Collectors, Meyer & Blair Brysac, p.114 director of the Fogg Art Museum, and Roger Merriman. Kates joined the Liberal Club and formed a close friendship with Henry Sayles Francis (later Curator of Cleveland Museum of Art) and a number of other prominent students of the arts. As Henry Sayles Francis notes in a letter to Fergus Bordewich: “We both belonged to the Liberal Club where we lunched continuously with a group whom we kept contact most of our lives…certainly for me, my roommate Alexander Mackay-Smith, fellow art majors Henry-Russell Hitchcock, and his [Kates’] roommate, George Kauf Keiser; Charles Poletti, later Lieutenant Governor of New York and John Caddington, today a distinguished genealogist; and among other members Virgil Thompson, his friend Briggs Buchanan, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Dana."
Kates was a success personally and academically at Harvard, graduating summa cum laude in 1922.The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 19, No.4, November 1990, p.1014, Obituary: George Kates, Pamela Atwell For a brief while he stayed on as a teaching assistant, and then in the fall of 1923 was accepted as a postgraduate student at Oxford University,The China Collectors, Meyer & Blair Brysac, p.114 where he began a doctoral course in the development of French Renaissance Art. His studies, out of necessity, required more time spent on the continent than in Britain, and he spent several years in the Paris archives and on tours of Italian and French museums, castles, and churches, tracing the spread of new ideas in art from 15th century Italy to France.A Love Affair with Old Beijing, Roote, chapter Fifteen - Oxford He had great trouble completing the written portion of his work and he returned to Harvard in 1926 with little to show for his efforts. Disillusioned by the prospect of a modestly paid university position and with having to teach, as opposed to do research, Kates sought better paying work.The China Collectors, Meyer & Blair Brysac, p.114 Through his Harvard connections Kates was introduced to Adolph Zukor,The China Collectors, Meyer & Blair Brysac, p.114 head of Paramount Pictures and was hired as a cultural consultant to assist with the accuracy of European movie productions.The China Collectors, Meyer & Blair Brysac, p.115
In 1927 Hollywood California was geographically isolated and once there Kates felt the loss of his friends, the cultural world of Europe and the East Coast. His work there consisted of selection of settings for filming, props and costumes appropriate to European settings.The Years that Were Fat, Kates, p.4 Paramount was in the process of producing a number of French and German pieces in order to broaden their offerings. Kates worked closely with European actors brought over for some of the productions who spoke no English.The Years that Were Fat, Kates, p.5 He became familiar with many of the stars of the late 1920s and early 1930s such as Clara Bow, Ester Ralston, Olga Baclanova and Buddy Rodgers.The China Collectors, Meyer & Blair Brysac, p.115 Paramount’s Long Island studio in 1931, the East Coast operations were closed down and Kates was left jobless in the midst of the Depression.The China Collectors, Meyer & Blair Brysac, p.116
Decision to go to China
With limited employment prospects, Kates returned to New England, where he read extensively and developed an interest in Chinese poetry and language, teaching himself Chinese. Although he considered returning to school, a former Harvard professor later offered him a scholarship to study in Beijing and learn the language and culture directly. The decision marked a shift from his earlier focus on European history, art, and languages toward the study of China.
China 1933 - 1941
Kates’ China years were the most notable and fulfilling of his life. He sailed the long voyage through the Panama Canal to Victoria, BC and onto Tokyo, before finally docking in Shanghai.The Years That Were Fat, Kates, p.8 Once in Beijing Kates enrolled in the Chinese language school and set about the task of mastering both spoken and written Chinese.The Years That Were Fat, Kates, p.9 After a few months, he moved out of the school accommodation and clear of the Foreign Legation Quarter which hosted most of the various expatriate officials and business people. He lived in a succession of Chinese accommodations inside the ‘Tartar City’ which was the central and most historic portion of the Chinese capital, where housing was in a variety of courtyard houses or in Chinese siheyuan.The Years That Were Fat, Kates, p.17-20 He grew interest in the archaic Chinese lifestyle, which was a world removed from the West and admired the Chinese houses, their simple, Taoistic courtyards, their beautiful furniture and dutiful servants.The Years That Were Fat, Kates, p.54 He spent his days learning Chinese with the help of a tutor who visited him every afternoon for his seven years in China.The Years That Were Fat, Kates, p.30 He delighted in the traders selling goods in the street, with their various ‘cries’, the Chinese food, and simpler lifestyle. He lived an authentic Chinese existence, removed from his Western counterparts.The Years That Were Fat, Kates, p.9 According to the weather and his moods, he would use his mornings to wander around the many Imperial parks and properties that, with the end of Empire in 1911, were now open to the viewing public. He delighted in the Forbidden City and its many courtyards and rich history.The Years That Were Fat, Kates, p.104 He spent many hours enjoying the Imperial Lakes west of the Palace and the various pleasures that came with each season. It was, for him, an idyllic existence.
After several years of study Kates mastered the Chinese language. He briefly attended classes at Beijing University.A Dance with the Dragon, Boyd, p.185 Then he began his own private studies at the Imperial Archives, exploring the world and the history of the city as it had been during the Qing Dynasty.A Love Affair with Old Beijing, Roote, chapter Eight - Scholar Through many hours studying ancient texts, time spent on the ground examining the streets,halls, and temples, and interviews of aging princes and eunuchs, Kates built up knowledge of the ancient capital and a substantial body of research materials.A Love Affair with Old Beijing, Roote, chapter Eight - Scholar He exhibited some of this knowledge in two scholarly articles published at the end of his time in China. In Prince Kung’s Palace and Its Adjoining Garden, (Monumenta Serica, 1940),Also known as Prince Gong’s Mansion Kates, who had come to know Prince Pu Ju who lived in the Kung palace, examined the history and the nature of this important princely palace and garden.Also known as Prince Gong’s Mansion It is still considered the definitive work in the English language on the subject. In A New Date for the Origins of the Forbidden City (Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, 1943), Kates challenged and disproved the accepted fact that the Forbidden City dated from the Ming Dynasty, and showed through his research that the palace was in fact founded in the Yuan. Kates demonstrated where the Yuan palace was located and what remained of it in his day.