In conjunction with the exhibition, “China Then and Now,” on view through March 8, 2015, the Nassau County Museum of Art in Roslyn Harbor is offering four talks by internationally recognized experts in various aspects of Chinese art and art collecting.
Each of the talks will be held on Saturday at 3 p.m. Admission for each lecture is $15 (museum members, $5) and includes museum admission. Advance registration is required as space is limited. Register at www.nassaumuseum.org/events.
On Saturday, Dec. 20 at 3 p.m., the museum, will present, “A Thousand Graces: Chinese Buddhist Sculpture in America Then and Now,” by Daisy Yiyou Wang, Ph.D.
Wang, curator of Chinese and East Asian Art at the Peabody Essex Museum, traces the journeys of Chinese Buddhist sculptures from early 20th-century temples to their display in American art museums as they fascinated noted American collectors such as Dr. Arthur M. Sackler, Charles L. Freer and John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Wang shares her new research on Charles L. Freer, the founder of the Smithsonian’s Freer Gallery of Art, exploring his collection of Chinese Buddhist art. She is the author of a forthcoming monograph on Freer and his collection.
On Saturday, Jan. 10 at 3 p.m., the museum will present, “C. C. Wang: Collector, Connoisseur and Painter” by Kathleen Yang.
Yang discusses C. C. Wang, a celebrated collector and connoisseur of Chinese art, as well as a painter himself, whose holdings included one of the world’s great collections of classical Chinese paintings and Chinese literati paintings of the 20th century. Yang, the author of Through a Chinese Connoisseur’s Eye, Private Notes of C. C. Wang, studied with Wang for decades to understand the traditional connoisseurship mentoring system that has existed in China for centuries. She will discuss the importance of Wang’s collection, how he judged paintings for acquisition, and Liu Dan’s landscape paintings.
On Saturday, Feb. 28 at 3 p.m., the museum presents, “A Cosmopolitan Taste: Chinese Blue-and-White Porcelain in the Frick Collection” by Kaijun Chen, Ph.D.
Chen, co-curator of China Then and Now, is a postdoctoral fellow at the Max-Planck-Institute, Berlin, and a specialist in the porcelain production at Jingdezhen, the premier center in China from the 14th to the 20th century. Chen discusses the Frick Collection of Chinese porcelains with a focus on the blue-and-white porcelains amassed by Childs Frick, a Long Island collector whose mansion now houses Nassau County Museum of Art. Frick’s collection of porcelains epitomizes the dynamic connection of China and the world as well as reveals the cosmopolitan vision of American entrepreneurs in the early 20th century.
On Saturday, March 7 at 3 p.m., the museum presents, “Chinese Art and Long Island Collectors: A Curator’s Perspective” by Amy G. Poster.
Poster, co-curator of China Then and Now, is Curator Emerita, Asian Art of the Brooklyn Museum. She presents highlights of the exhibition, focusing on extraordinary works collected by some of Long Island’s great aesthetes from yesteryear and today. A recognized expert of Asian art and culture, Poster is an independent curator and consultant who has published numerous scholarly catalogs and articles, including recent studies of early American collectors of Chinese art.
The Nassau County Museum of Art is located at One Museum Drive in Roslyn Harbor, just off Northern Boulevard, Route 25A. Call 516-484-9338, ext. 12, to inquire about group tours.
