Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Chief Curator Search this
Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Curatorial - Ceramics Search this
Arthur M. Sackler Gallery (Smithsonian Institution) Search this
Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Office of the Director Search this
Type:
Mixed archival materials
Date:
1920
1920-
Category:
Agency History
Notes:
This is an agency history. It does not describe actual records. The Smithsonian Institution Archives uses these histories as brief accounts of the origin, development, and functions of an office or administrative unit to set that unit in its historical context. To find information on record holdings, please double-click the highlighted field "Creator/Author", which will open on a brief view of relevant records.
Beyond the Legacy, pp. 55-59, 61-62
Smithsonian Annals, 1951-1998
Smithsonian Directory, 1999
Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Ann Yonemura Bio, https://asia.si.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Ann-Yonemura.pdf, accessed January 6, 2022
Embassy of Japan in the United States of America - 2021 Autumn Conferment of Decoration, Curator Emerita, Ann Yonemura, November 3, 2021, https://www.us.emb-japan.go.jp/itpr_en/2021-autumn-conferment-yonemura.html, accessed January 6, 2022
National Museum of Art, About Us, Contact Us, Staff, Sol Jung, https://asia.si.edu/about/contact/staff/sol-jung/, accessed January 6, 2022
National Museum of Art, About Us, Contact Us, Staff, Kit Brooks, https://asia.si.edu/about/contact/staff/kit-brooks/, accessed January 6, 2022
National Museum of Art, About Us, Contact Us, Staff, Frank Feltens, https://asia.si.edu/about/contact/staff/frank-feltens/, accessed January 6, 2022
Curatorship of the Japanese collection of art at the Freer Gallery began in 1920, when the first Director, John Ellerton Lodge was hired. He and his staff curated the Far Eastern art collections, as did the next director, Archibald Gibson Wenley. During this time, the curatorial staff of the Freer Gallery of Art was small, curatorial areas and titles were less defined, and visiting curators were used to help maintain the collections. A major turning point for the Japanese art collection came with the appointment of Harold P. Stern as assistant in research in 1951. Prior to Stern's employment with the Freer Gallery of Art relatively few additions of Japanese art were made to the collection. He spent much of his career at the gallery building up the Japanese art collection.
Lodge and his staff curated the Far Eastern art collections from 1920 to 1942 when he died. Wenley and his staff curated from 1943 to 1962. Stern joined the staff as assistant in research and served in this capacity from 1951 to 1958. He was then Associate Curator, 1958-1961, and Curator, Japanese Art, 1961-1962. Stern became Acting Assistant Director in 1962 and was Assistant Director from 1963 to 1971. He remained the Director of the Freer Gallery of Art from 1971 to his death in 1977. Stern continued to conduct the curatorial tasks of the Japanese art collection even into his tenure as Director of the Freer Gallery of Art. He completed "Birds, Beasts, Blossoms, and Bugs: The Nature of Japan" - a catalogue for the same-titled 1976 exhibition - while he was Director. There was a vacancy in the curatorship of Japanese art from 1977 to 1979. The next curator was Yoshiaki Shimizu, Associate Curator, 1979-1983, and Curator, 1983-1985. Ann Yonemura was an Assistant Curator, 1976-1990, became Associate Curator in 1990, and retired in 2018 as Senior Associate Curator. Other staff include Frank Feltens, Japan Foundation Assistant Curator, 2017-2020, and then Japan Foundation Associate Curator, 2021- ; Kit Brooks, Japan Foundation Assistant Curator; and Sol Jung, Shirley Z. Johnson Assistant Curator. Incumbents of Curatorial - Japanese Art report to the Chief Curator.
Curatorial - Japanese Art conducts research; publishes; lectures; studies and translates texts, seals, and artifacts; and provides expert opinions on provenance, age, quality, and other significance of the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery artifacts of Japanese art. Research and lectures take place both in these galleries and in other research sites in this country and abroad. Some of the study of Japanese ceramics was done separately by Curatorial - Ceramics and its predecessors.
For a history of the larger creating unit, refer to "Forms part of " above.
Repository Loc.:
Smithsonian Institution Archives, Capital Gallery, Suite 3000, MRC 507; 600 Maryland Avenue, SW; Washington, DC 20024-2520
