$5 million gift marks 25th anniversary year of the Smithsonian’s Arthur M. Sackler Gallery

WASHINGTON, DC.- The Smithsonian has received a gift of $5 million from Dame Jillian Sackler, the New York-based philanthropist and widow of Arthur M. Sackler, for whom the Gallery is named. The gift will be used to establish an endowment to support the position of the director and programs at the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery and Freer Gallery of Art, which together constitute the Smithsonian’s museums of Asian art. In recognition of Jillian Sackler’s generosity, the museums’ director position will be known [...]

Stunning Portraits Reveal the Political Savvy of One of History’s Most Powerful Women

WASHINGTON, DC.- The life of China’s Empress Dowager Cixi (1835-1908) was anything but conventional. She rose in power from a low-ranking imperial concubine to Grand Empress Dowager of the Qing court, reigning as sovereign to more than 400 million people for more than 45 years. “Power | Play: China’s Empress Dowager” is on view at the Smithsonian’s Arthur M. Sackler Gallery through Jan. 29, 2012. The exhibition presents 19 stunning photographic portraits of the Empress Dowager created from the Freer and Sackler Archives’ [...]

Freer Gallery of Art to Open the Shutters of James McNeill Whistler’s Famed Peacock Room

WASHINGTON, D.C.- For the first time in 25 years, the Smithsonian’s Freer Gallery of Art will open the shutters of James McNeill Whistler’s famed Peacock Room for public view on the third Thursday of each month, beginning Aug. 18, 12-5:30 p.m. Visitors to the room will have a chance to experience the tonal subtleties and decorative variations of Whistler’s “harmony in blue and gold” visible only in natural sunlight. The museum installed ultraviolet- and visible-light-filtering film on the windows, allowing visitors to see [...]

“Waves at Matsushima” at the Sackler Gallery Honor’s Japan’s Beloved Pine Islands

WASHINGTON.- Long revered as one of Japan’s most beautiful sites, Matsushima Bay endured the unleashing of the devastating earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan March 11. Despite its proximity to the epicenter of the underwater earthquake, the site is one of the few places along the Sanriku coast that sustained less damage, mostly due to the buffering effect of the bay’s 260 pine-studded islands that lend the area its name. “Waves at Matsushima,” on view at the Arthur M. Sackler [...]

Museum Partnership Creates Cambodia’s First Metal Conservation Laboratory

WASHINGTON, DC.- The enduring significance of bronze in Cambodian culture is the theme of “Gods of Angkor: Bronzes from the National Museum of Cambodia,” the first international exhibition to focus specifically on the skills and achievements of Khmer bronze casters. On view at the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery from May 15 through Jan. 23, 2011, the exhibition features magnificent bronze sculptures and ritual objects created within a Khmer cultural context that spanned some 1,600 years, from late prehistory through the [...]

Sackler Gallery Presents Contemporary Chinese Artist Hai Bo

WASHINGTON, DC.- Five large-scale photographs by the Chinese artist Hai Bo will be on view March 27 through Nov. 28 at the Smithsonian’s Arthur M. Sackler Gallery. The photographs are the latest installment in the Sackler’s contemporary series, “Perspectives,” which focuses on the work of leading contemporary artists from Asia and the Asian diaspora and bridges the gap between the traditional, often separate, roles played by Asian art museums and modern art galleries. Born in 1962 in Changchun, the capital [...]