Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Curatorial - Near Eastern Art Search this
Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Curatorial - Japanese Art Search this
Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Curatorial - Chinese Art Search this
Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Chief Curator Search this
Type:
Mixed archival materials
Date:
1965
1965-2018
1968-2018
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.
Smithsonian Annals, 1965-1997
Smithsonian Directory, 1999
Building the Freer|Sackler Southeast Asian Ceramic Collection by Louise Allison Cort, Southeast Asian Ceramic Society, December 16, 2018, https://www.seaceramic.org.sg/16-dec-2018-freer-sea/, accessed January 5, 2022
The art of ceramics was not considered a distinct area of study at the Freer Gallery of Art until 1965, when Far Eastern ceramics were studied by Josephine H. Knapp and later by John Alexander Pope. Before 1965, ceramics were handled within the geographically defined curatorial areas from which they came (e.g., Curatorial - Chinese Art, Curatorial - Japanese Art, Curatorial - Near Eastern Art). Ceramics were given official curatorial status in 1989, when the Museum Specialist, Ceramics title was changed to Assistant Curator, Ceramics. Curatorial - Ceramics reports to the Chief Curator.
Knapp served as a research assistant and a museum specialist in Far Eastern ceramics from 1965 until her retirement in 1993. Pope retired as Secretary in order to continue his research of Far Eastern Ceramics and did so as Research Curator from 1971 to 1982. Louise Allison Cort was Museum Specialist, Ceramics from about 1985 to 1989; Assistant Curator, Ceramics, 1989-1994; Associate Curator, Ceramics, 1994-1995; and Curator, Ceramics, 1995-2018. Curatorial - Ceramics as a separate curatorial division seems to have ended in 2018.
Curatorial - Ceramics conducts research; publishes; lectures; studies and translates texts, seals, and artifacts; and provides expert opinions on provenance, age, and quality of the ceramics collection. Research and lectures take place both in the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery and in other research sites in this country and abroad.
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
