Linden Gallery Introduces Asian Culture to Door County

It’s easy to become complacent in the everyday, the routine. After meeting with Jeanee and Brian Linden of the Linden Gallery of Ellison Bay, however, one is reminded how important it is to travel past familiar boundaries. Fortunately for Door County residents and visitors, The Linden Gallery offers a convenient trip from the ordinary.

The Lindens opened the gallery in 1995, after they discovered Trinity Lutheran Church, built in 1955, was for sale at a good price. They credit the building as being one of the reasons they ended up in Door County. Jeanee says, “The church spoke to us. It was empty for two years, and we had a vision from the start.”

Their vision was for the gallery to serve as a cultural ambassador. The Lindens source materials while in Asia and ship them back to the Ellison Bay gallery, bringing in an array of Asian furniture, antiques, textiles, paintings, porcelain, silks, jewelry and bronzes.

Brian says, “Our aim is to be a platform to share Asian culture with the Midwest. So, in a way, it’s not as commercially focused as other Asian galleries. If we tried to do this in New York, San Francisco or Chicago, we would have to make it very commercial, and we didn’t want it to be based on money.

“In Wisconsin, people’s understanding of Asia is through the media and manufactured goods,” he adds. “The items we have are vernacular pieces that can be used in Western interiors, and each has a story.”

The Lindens personally collect the pieces – and their stories – from all over China and other parts of rural Asia. “We go out into the villages and are always out in the markets and in homes,” says Brian.

Brian is originally from the Chicago suburbs where his family owned an antique shop.

“They knew the business of hunting for treasures,” says Jeanee, who is a third generation Chinese-American from San Francisco, California.

Both Brian and Jeanee have been in China intermittently since the ’80s (it’s where they met). Their backgrounds and deep appreciation of Chinese culture gives them an advantage in being welcomed into homes.

“Brian is foreign and speaks excellent Chinese – there’s an element of trust that we are experts. We talk to them and make friends,” says Jeanee.

Along with antiques, the Linden Gallery also shows original artwork, such as the paintings of Susan Ploughe. Ploughe met the Lindens when she went on a painting trip to China in 2008, organized through The Linden Centre, the Lindens’ other business venture, a cultural retreat located in China’s Yunnan Province. The gallery now displays her paintings that were inspired and created during her trip.

Ploughe says, “I’m still doing paintings from the photographs I took there of the Chinese people. I’m going back within the year to get more material.”

Ploughe focuses on people as her subject matter. “I particularly like painting the older people who wear traditional clothing,” she says. “I like to capture what will soon be gone.”

The gallery also features the artwork of He Qi, a prestigious painter whose work is internationally held in high regard. The only place he shows his work in the world is the Linden Gallery, a credit to the Lindens’ reputation in Asia.

Brian says, “When he goes to England, he’s met by the Archbishop of Canterbury, and we’re the only gallery that shows his work in the world. He feels comfortable with us.”

Occasionally, the Lindens feel as if the pieces they’ve attained are too valuable to sell, such as the Tibetan manuscript case that was found in a Tibetan temple and now sits near the altar area in the gallery. But, ultimately, their goal is to serve as cultural ambassadors between Asia and Wisconsin, so they include write-ups with timelines about certain pieces for visitors to better access a cultural perspective.

The diversity of the items – in genre and price – is impressive. An assumption many people may have about the gallery, since it looks like a museum, is it’s probably expensive. Brian reassures, “It’s very affordable. There’s a 1,000-year-old plate and they can get it for $45…people are blown away.”

The Lindens say their client base is also diverse; they even have customers who fly into Door County specifically to visit their gallery. Brian says, “It’s still funny for people to come in and say, ‘Do people buy these things?’ But if you look at architectural magazines this stuff is eternal.”

Submitted photo.

While the Lindens are successful and respected in art circles, they would still like to see new, local faces enter the gallery – they cannot be cultural ambassadors if people don’t first step through their doors. Jeanee says, “The curiosity is not the same [about the Lindens and their work in Door County, as it is in China]; when it’s in your own backyard, you take it for granted.”

The Linden Center

“What drives us is the desire to be cultural ambassadors between two countries and two cultures,” said Brian Linden, on his and Jeanee’s business motivation. This desire inspired their gallery and also the founding of The Linden Centre in Xizhou in China’s Yunnan Province in 2008.

The Lindens explain the center is similar to The Clearing or The Aspen Institute. They bring leading thinkers to their rural retreat and offer tours that mix academics and culture. Brian said, “We’re trying to put together a new travel paradigm. It’s not just about taking photos, but trying to immerse travelers into the culture – bring them into people’s homes.”

“Serene” by Susan Ploughe.

Another reason the Lindens are committed to owning and operating these two businesses across the world from each other are their sons, Shane and Bryce (ages 17 and 14, respectively). “We want them comfortable living in another culture and being world citizens. We followed our passion and wanted the boys to see us struggle, but to see us do things because we had a dream,” says Brian.

The work at the Linden Centre has not gone unnoticed and they’ve garnered numerous awards and recognition, including:  Travel + Leisure’s Global Vision Award, 2010; CNNGo’s Top Heritage Hotel in China, 2011; and Trip Advisor’s #7 Ranked Luxury Hotel in China, 2013.

The Lindens appreciate these awards because if their center is considered a luxury hotel, then they’re redefining what luxury is and how people travel. This is a point of pride. “We created places that we ourselves would want to find. We didn’t find anything like this, so we created it,” adds Jeanee.

Photography by Len Villano.