A Tale of a Curator and a Collector: The Ross-Coomaraswamy Bond
VIEW EVENT DETAILSAsia Society Curators and Collectors Series
Evening Presentation
Drinks reception: 6:30pm
Presentation: 7:00pm
Close: 8:00pm
2017 will mark the 100th anniversary of the acquisition of Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy (1877–1947) Collection of Indian art (along with the collector as the first curator of Indian art in America) by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, which is already renowned for its Chinese and Japanese collections. The man behind both the acquisition of the collection and the appointment of the future savant was a “Boston Brahmin” and a prodigious philanthropist named Denman Waldo Ross (1853–1935), who however is little remembered today. Ross’s gifts to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston number in the thousands and he may be characterized as the most “globally” eclectic collector before the word “global” became a buzzword. This illustrated lecture will recount the close bond that existed between the curator and the patron, which is the essential secret of building a great museum collection in America.
Dr. Pratapaditya Pal is an internationally recognized Asian art historian, curator and teacher who has been associated with major museums and universities in the United States for the last half-century. A chair in Asian art history was recently endowed in his name at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London.