Everything about The Freer Gallery totally explained
The
Freer Gallery of Art is the
Smithsonian Institution's museum of
East Asian art, including
art from
East Asia (
China,
Korea,
Japan),
South Asia (
India), and
southeast Asia, as well as
American art. The Freer is one of two galleries of the National Museum of Asian Art, the other being the
Sackler Gallery. It opened to the general public in
1923. It is located on the south side of the
National Mall in
Washington, D.C.
Visitor favorites include
Chinese ceramics and
Chinese paintings,
Korean Ceramics, and
Korean pottery, Japanese folding screens, Indian and
Persian manuscripts
, and Buddhist sculpture from various regions and time periods. The artwork of the gallery ranges from
Neolithic to
modern, with multitudes of painted art mostly from the
Song Dynasty,
Ming Dynasty, and
Qing Dynasty of China.
History
The gallery was founded by
Charles Lang Freer (1854–1919), a railroad-car manufacturer from Detroit who gave to the United States his collections and funds for a building to house them. The Italian-Renaissance-style gallery, constructed in granite and marble, was designed by American architect
Charles A. Platt. When the gallery opened to the public in 1923, it was the first Smithsonian museum for fine arts. In subsequent years, the
collections have grown through gifts and purchases to nearly triple the size of Freer's bequest.
A highlight of the
Whistler holdings is the
Peacock Room, a dining room that was once part of a London townhouse. In 1876,
Whistler lavishly decorated the room with a blue and gold peacock design. After the owner's death, the room was purchased in toto and brought to the United States and permanently installed in the
Freer Gallery.
The adjoining
Arthur M. Sackler Gallery was opened in 1987 to house a gift of some 1,000 works of Asian art from Dr.
Arthur M. Sackler (1913–1987), a research physician and medical publisher from New York City. Among the highlights of his gift were early Chinese bronzes and jades, Chinese paintings and lacquerware, ancient Near Eastern ceramics and metalware, and sculpture from South and Southeast Asia. Sackler also donated $4 million toward construction of the gallery. Since 1987, the gallery's collections have expanded to include the Vever Collection, an important assemblage of the Islamic arts of the book from the 11th to the 19th century; 19th- and 20th-century Japanese prints and contemporary porcelain; Indian, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean paintings; arts of village India; contemporary Chinese ceramics; and photography.
International loan exhibitions have included Timur and the Princely Vision: Persian Art and Culture in the 15th Century; Yani: the Brush of Innocence, featuring paintings by a 14-year-old Chinese prodigy; When Kingship Descended from Heaven: Masterpieces of Mesopotamian Art from the Louvre; Court Arts of Indonesia; Korean Art of the 18th Century: Splendor & Simplicity; and A Basketmaker in Rural Japan.
The Sackler Gallery is connected by an underground exhibition space to the neighboring Freer Gallery of Art. Although their collections are stored and exhibited separately, the two museums share a director, administration, and staff.
The Eugene and Agnes E. Meyer Auditorium, located in the Freer, provides a venue for a broad variety of free public programs relating to the collections of the Freer and Sackler galleries, including concerts of Asian music and dance, films, lectures, chamber music, and dramatic presentations
(External Link).
Care of the collections began before the museum came into existence as Charles Lang Freer, the founder of the Freer Gallery of Art, hired Japanese painting restorers to care for his works and to prepare them for their eventual home as part of the Smithsonian Institution. In 1932, the Freer Gallery of Art hired a full-time Japanese restorer and created what was to become the East Asian Painting Conservation Studio. The Technical Laboratory, and the first use of scientific methods for the study of art at the Smithsonian Institution, started in 1951 when the chemist Rutherford J. Gettens moved from the Fogg Museum at Harvard University to the Freer. The East Asian Painting Conservation Studio and the Technical Laboratory merged in 1990 to form the Department of Conservation and Scientific Research
(External Link).
Gallery
China
Image:Freer 024.jpg
Image:Freer 005.jpg
Image:Song Dynasty Porcelain Bottle.jpg
Image:Freer 013.jpg
Image:Western Zhou Gui Vessel.jpg
Image:Freer 026.jpg
Image:Freer 009.jpg
Image:Freer 019.jpg
Image:Chinese Boddhisattva statue.jpg
Image:Qing Dynasty Cloisonne Stupa.jpg
Image:Jin Dynasty Bodhisattva.jpg
Image:Jade pot from the Qing Dynasty.jpg
India
Image:13th century Ganesha statue.jpg
Image:Krishna with flute.jpg
Image:Shiva and Uma 14th century.jpg
Image:Dwarka.jpg
Egypt
Image:Egyptian Coffin Mask.jpg
Image:Egyptian Miniature Glasswares.jpg
Japan
Image:Japanese Amida Buddha.jpg
Image:Japanese Arhat Painting.jpg
Image:Kongorikishi statue from 14th century Japan.jpg
Image:Kongo Yasha wood statue.jpg
Nepal
Image:Ganesh Nepal.jpg
Image:Nepalese Bodhisattva.jpg
Persia
Image:Sword and scabbard from 7th Century Persia.jpg
Image:Persian Ceramic Bowl.JPG
Image:Persian Ceramic Plate.JPG
Korea
Image:Korean Wine Ewer.jpg
Image:Korean Wine Ewer3.jpg
Syria
Image:Mamluk glassware vessels.jpg
Kushan
Image:Four Scenes from the Life of the Buddha 1.jpg
Image:Four Scenes from the Life of the Buddha 2.jpg
Image:Four Scenes from the Life of the Buddha 3.jpg
Further Information
Get more info on 'Freer Gallery'.
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