Sherman Lee at the Cleveland Museum of Art, 1965. Courtesy of The Cleveland Museum of Art Archives

Sherman Lee: Master of Art, Asia Week New York
Online webinar, Tuesday, September 13, 2022, 5pm EDT

Sherman Lee, the renowned Asian art expert, had an enormous impact on the field of Asian art. His most significant role was as director of the Cleveland Museum of Art, where he was instrumental in assembling one of the foremost Asian art collections in the US and turned the museum into a major destination. In addition, his legendary connoisseurship and brilliant eye made him a sought-after adviser to collectors, among them John D. Rockefeller 3rd for his collection of Asian art, bequeathed to Asia Society.

Four panelists will discuss and give presentations about different facets of Lee’s life and career. These include his approach to collecting Asian art, a personal perspective from his daughter, further insights on his influence in the field from a fellow Asian art scholar and friend of many years, and his role as advisor and benefactor to the Ackland Museum.

Separating Sheep from Goats: Sherman E. Lee and Collecting Asian Art
Noelle Giuffrida
Curator of Asian Art, David Owsley Museum of Art and Professor of Art History,
Ball State University
Noelle Giuffrida is the author of Separating Sheep from Goats: Sherman E. Lee’s Collecting of Chinese Art in Postwar America, published by the University of California Press in 2018. In addition to her work at Ball State University, where she recently completed reinstalling and reinterpreting the Japanese collection at the David Owsley Museum of Art, Giuffrida also serves as a research associate with the Center for East Asian Studies at the University of Kansas. Giuffrida’s research focuses on Chinese art, particularly the history of collecting and exhibiting premodern works in American museums after World War II and the visual culture of Daoism in late imperial China. Her teaching and curatorial experience extend broadly both temporally—from Neolithic to contemporary—and cross-culturally to China, Korea, and Japan, as well as to South and Southeast Asia.

Sherman Lee: Reflections of a Daughter
Katharine Lee Reid
Retired Director, Cleveland Museum of Art
Katharine Lee Reid is the daughter of Sherman Lee, who sparked her interest in art while still a child. Reid served as director of the Cleveland Museum of Art from 2000-2005, a post her father held from 1958 to 1983. During her tenure, work began on the museum's extensive expansion and renovation. Reid was director of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts from 1991-2000, when she also initiated a large renovation project and significantly expanded the museum's programs and community outreach. Prior to her time at the VMFA, Reid held the posts of assistant and deputy director at the Art Institute of Chicago and curatorial positions at the Ackland Art Museum, the Smart Museum of Art, and the Toledo Museum of Art. During her career, Reid has shared her rich experience on numerous boards and advisory committees. She was awarded the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government. Reid holds degrees in art history from Vassar College and Harvard University and studied at the Sorbonne; she holds an honorary degree of Doctor of Fine Arts from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Sherman Lee: A Man for All Seasons
Mary Ann Rogers
Co-founder & Director, Kaikodo
Mary Ann Rogers received an MPhil in Chinese Art and Archaeology from the School of Oriental and African Studies, the University of London, and worked toward a PhD in Chinese painting at UC Berkeley. She has balanced a life in the art business with an academic life, contributing to journals and catalogues in Asian art and culture, teaching in the states and Japan, where she was also affiliated with the Tokyo-based Idemitsu Museum of Arts. Mary Ann and her husband established and operated Kaikodo, from their home in Kita-Kamakura in Japan for well over a decade and then for 25 years in New York City, where their gallery served as a vibrant meeting place for collectors and scholars of Asian Art worldwide. In the wake of the global health crisis, the Rogers relocated all Kaikodo business operations to the Big Island in Hawai’i, which has long been the center of Kaikodo Journal production and a destination for friends and associates in their field, all making Mary Ann eminently qualified to discuss the lasting legacy of Sherman Lee in A Man for All Seasons.

Sage in the Bamboo Grove: Sherman E. Lee and the Ackland Art Museum
Peter Nisbet
Deputy Director for Curatorial Affairs, Ackland Art Museum
Peter Nisbet is the deputy director for curatorial affairs at the Ackland Art Museum at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he oversees the exhibition program and the permanent collection of over 20,000 objects, including some 1,600 Asian works of art. He has published widely on the Russian and Soviet avant-garde, on German modern and contemporary art, on postwar Japanese art, and on issues of museum history, theory, and practice. His most recent book is Look Close, Think Far: Art at the Ackland, which was published by Paul Holberton Publishing this summer. Before joining the Ackland in 2009, Nisbet held posts at the Busch-Reisinger Museum/Harvard Art Museums, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Yale University Art Gallery. He holds a BA and MA from Cambridge University and a PhD in the History of Art from Yale University.

Moderator:
Dessa Goddard
Vice President, US Head, Asian Art Group, Senior Specialist, Chinese Art, Senior Specialist, Japanese Art, Head of Business Strategy, Global Chinese Paintings, Senior Management Team, Bonhams
Chairman, Asia Week New York

To register, click here.