When Art Meets Science: Practicing Japanese Art History at the Harvard Art Museums
VIEW EVENT DETAILSArt for Breakfast with Rachel Saunders
This May, we invite Dr. Rachel Saunders, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Curator of Asian Art from the Harvard Art Museums where she is responsible for the Japanese collections to Art for Breakfast.
The Harvard Art Museums are dedicated to creating transformative teaching and learning experiences. When the museums’ home was renovated in 2014, these principles were literally set in stone in a new building that united their collections with curatorial and scientific expertise under one roof. Since then, the collections have been put to work both as vital teaching tools that enhance critical thinking, and also in significant new opportunities for the production, presentation, and interpretation of transdisciplinary scholarship.
This installment of Art for Breakfast will explore the ways in which this US campus museum is currently grappling with the question of who and what museums are for with a behind-the-scenes look at one of its most recent collaborative projects.
Event and Registration Details
- This event will be conducted in in-person and online, and registration is required.
- In-person participation is for members and guests only. Please pay your fee by credit card or at the door.
- Online participation is open to the public and free.
Speaker Bio
Rachel Saunders
Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Curator of Asian Art, Harvard Art Museums
Rachel Saunders, PhD, is the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Curator of Asian Art at the Harvard Art Museums, Harvard University, where she is primarily responsible for the Japanese collections. She holds degrees from the University of Oxford, London University, and Harvard University, and is a specialist in sacred narrative painting. She is the author of numerous scholarly articles, published in English and Japanese, and has held fellowships at The University of Tokyo, the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., and the Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies. She is the author and editor of Painting Edo (Yale University Press, 2020), which accompanied the recent special exhibition of the same name, and co-editor of the 2023 volume Hābādo Bijutsukan Namubutsu Taishi zō no kenkyū (The Sculpture of Prince Shōtoku at Age Two at the Harvard Art Museums), published in Tokyo (Chūō Kōron Bijutsu Shuppan) in March 2023.
Event Details
(In-person: Members & guests only / Online: Open to the public)
International House of Japan B1