2012 Lecture - event information

From Mementos to Masterpiece

Saturday, November 3, 2012
11:30 AM - 5:00 PM
Lenart Auditorium, Fowler Museum

The Chinese Collections of the Harvard Art Museums

Harvard was the first university in the United States to offer courses in Asian art. First taught in the 1920s by Langdon Warner (1881-1955), those early courses focused on the arts of the Silk Route and on Chinese and Japanese Buddhist art, particularly sculpture. Over the decades and under the direction of successive curators, the museum collections grew in tandem with expanded course offerings in the Department of Fine Arts (now the Department of the History of Art and Architecture), so that the Harvard Art Museums’ Chinese collections now rank among the very best in the U.S., with world-class holdings of ceramics, Buddhist sculpture, and ancient bronzes and jades. This illustrated slide lecture will introduce the museums’ collection of Chinese art, trace its evolution and development over the past 100 years, and make clear the historically close ties between the museum and the art history department.

Robert D. Mowry is Alan J. Dworsky Curator of Chinese Art and Head of the Department of Asian Art at the Harvard Art Museums. He did his graduate work at the University of Kansas, studying with Laurence Sickman and Chu-tsing Li. A Senior Lecturer on Chinese and Korean Art in Harvard’s Department of the History of Art and Architecture, Robert has also been working to strengthen the Harvard Art Museums’ holdings of Chinese paintings and ceramics—particularly early Chinese ceramics, from the Neolithic through the Song periods, and modern and contemporary Chinese ink paintings. He also teaches Chinese and Korean art in Harvard’s Department of the History of Art and Architecture.

Sammy Yukuan Lee Lecture on Chinese Archaeology and Art

First presented in 1982 in celebration of his 80th birthday, the Sammy Yukuan Lee Lectures on Chinese Art and Archaeology honors the life and philanthropy of respected businessman, art collector, and Chinese art authority, Sammy Yukuan Lee. This series is presented annually by the UCLA Center for Chinese Studies with support from the Sammy Yukuan Lee Foundation, and in partnership with the Fowler Museum at UCLA.

Parking on the UCLA campus is $12. Enter UCLA from Sunset Blvd. at Westwood Plaza. Parking attendants will direct you to Lot 4. There is an elevator at the southeast end of Lot 4 and a stairwell at the northeast end, closest to the museum.

The lecture and museum admission are free and open to the public.

A reception with refreshments will follow the talk.

For directions or more information, please call (310) 825-8683 or email: china@international.ucla.edu